Grabbing 7 out of a maximum 9 points this week for Croatia was absolutely perfect! Especially when the Vatreni only scored one goal in their first two matches.
Obviously, a win against Russia would have been the cherry on top of the cake, but it’s never easy to go into Moscow – especially without an in-form striker – and expect a result. We just witnessed Croatia’s toughest week of 2022 World Cup qualifying and we have to feel good going into October. The matches against Russia and Slovakia on the road were anything but pretty but Perišić and the boys showed their superiority against Slovenia in Split without Luka Modrić. So where does that put Croatia going into the final four matches in October and November?
Croatia currently sit top spot in Group H; pipping Russia by +1 in the ‘Goal Differential’ column. Goal differential is the first tiebreaker in World Cup matches, so this could come into play later. It’s important to finish top spot in group because only 1st place gets an automatic berth to Qatar in 2022. The 2nd place team would have to backdoor their spot through a “too complicated to share now” 4-team playoff in March of 2022. Croatia has played in every World Cup they have been eligible for since 1991 except for one: 2010 in South Africa. However, the Vatreni have only qualified directly twice: 2002 and 2006. In 1998, 2014, and 2018, a playoff was needed to get into the ‘Big Dance’.
Now, Croatia has the upper hand to qualify directly for the World Cup for the first time since 2006. Luka Modrić should be at 100% health in October. Nikola Vlašić will have a month under his belt at West Ham in the Premiership. Can Andrej Kramarić figure out his goal scoring woes in the Croatian checkers? Will Rebić, Brekalo, Vrsaljko return in 2022? There was tons of firepower not available for Dalić this past week. Injuries will heal, but can the same thing be said for egos? Looking at you Ante Rebić.
Croatia will only have two matches in October: October 8th in Cyprus and October 11th against Slovakia in Osijek. With our players well into their club seasons, I can’t see us not picking up two wins with so much on the line. It will be a tough week for Russia as they host Slovakia before hopping on a plane to face a tricky Slovenia side. I see Russia dropping points in October which will open the door for Dalić and company. Even if Croatia only pick up four points from this week of matches, their first match of November is Malta before the group finale against Russia at Poljud. Worst case scenario – unless the sky falls – Croatia will need a draw against Russia at home on the final day to qualify for the World Cup. And you would take that scenario all day long.
But I still have a feeling Russia will implode when it matters most.
Four qualifiers remaining in 2022. Who will step up to be Croatia’s #1 striker? That is the burning question in my eyes. Krama, Budimir, Livaja. Who will it be? The defense has figured out a way to keep the ball out of the net, but the team is not scoring enough in my opinion.
I’m not sure if it was better to play Russia at the end of these last three games or at the start
How would it have faired if we swapped the Slovenia and Russia games?
Oh well, we are in solid shape. Let’s not stress about this second place crap
We control it all
Yes Malta and Cyprus ain’t a joke and so is Slovakia again
But come on barely any player on all these teams in Slovakia crack our sub list
Russia really not a ton better either
They just play difficult
Hopefully doesn’t come down to the last game
But in theory we have now two good kicks at it
First very much in grabs
Second the very least now and another chance
Lots to be greatful for
More time for our guys to gel
Krama is due to get hot and score like a goal a game finishing it up
Luka gonna be back
Its almost feels like getting one of the best players ever to put boots on, oh wait cause it is!
We have enough pieces to finish this up
And hopefully can gel for next year
When does the euro qualifying start?
Next spring?
Is nations league happening again??
The way things stand I would say that we are almost assured of grabbing second spot in the group providing we beat Cyprus and Malta away.
If we were to finish second ? according to the play off rules we will be seeded for the first round i.e ranked from 1 to 6 ( seeding based on FIFA rankings) and the seeded teams will play the first elimination match at home against a team ranked 7 to 12.
Six winning teams are than drawn for the final round of play offs. This is also a one off match with no seedings. Team drawn first plays at home. Three winners go to the World Cup.
Looking at the current standings the following teams look like coming second:
Russia or Croatia, Serbia/Portugal, Sweden/Spain, Switzland, Ukraine, Chezch Republic, Scotland, Turkey/Norway, Poland, Romania.
Ten runners up in qualifying groups will be joined by two countries that fail to come first or second in their qualifying groups but have won their Euro Nations League groups. At this stage it looks like it will be Wales and Austria. If Wales come second in their qualifying group in front of Chezch Republic than Hungary will be in the play offs and Chezch Republic missing out. Austria cannot miss out on play offs even if they come last in their qualifying group.
Hopefully we can come first in the group and avoid the play offs.
Any idea if goals against the minnows of the group count?
YES
Yea.
All of the second place teams progress to the playoff round.
It’s only when “some” of the second placed teams progress, where they eliminate the points and goals gained against the bottom teams (in groups where there were six teams instead of five teams to make it even).
Either way, I consider second place in this group as a fire-able offence.
We need to top this group.
yup. Especially, as has been telegraphed already, finishing 2nd is a much tougher path to qualification than ever before. Need to progress in 2 separate single elimination games. Plus the home team for the 2nd game is decided by a lottery, not a fifa coefficient or anything.
You think a team like Romania can’t take us to PK’s I’m a single game if they’re playing at home? (Or beat us outright)?
Home team is decided by lottery?
Ugh. So stupid.
Lottery/Vibrating ping pong balls
For the 2nd game, yeah.
For the first game, it’s FIFA (or UEFA, not sure) coefficient. But the second game will be
played just like four days after the first game. So I guess they want to know in advance who would be the home team in the second game, and not scramble in planning everything last minute.
Maminjo, you are getting confused with Euro qualifiers.
For WC Qualifying goal difference counts against bottom placed teams, irrelevant of group size (i.e 5 or 6 teams in group). Ten groups, therefore ten runners up go to play offs + two best winners from Euro Nations League (at the moment Wales & Austria).
Hopefully we qualify and by next year one of these kids step up as a goal scorer
Simic, ljubicic
World Cup is 15 months away, that’s a lot of time still for development
Realistically, besides modric and perisic being older(but both take fitness extremely serious it appears)
We will have some prime players
Broz, Kova, vlasic entering that age, karma who knows really, young defense Including the wing backs coming along
There are reasons to think we could show well
Italy tied Bulgaria last week. We need to be hard on ourselves, but really can’t think we can go undefeated
Remember we made playoffs in 98 and 18. So, let’s not think we are going to steam roll
Heck we cruised in 06 and that didn’t go so well
The last two world cups we’ve needed the playoffs to go through. It’s nerve racking and hopefully it doesn’t happen again. Italy just play it safe and know if they lose one game, people will say it’s a fluke they won euros.
These playoffs will be even more nerve-racking since they are a single-game elimination…and you have to go through two different teams.
12 teams make the playoffs, with 3 that come out.
Wow, I didn’t realize that the 2nd place playoff path was so complicated and difficult. There will be some very good teams that finish 2nd, so we better not be complacent in these final games.
If only we had a coach that likes to cap young players..
Don’t know what’s worse the days of Mamic getting his non-national team caliber players to start or this.
Look at that 18 year old American Pepi. He dominated last night
I would personally almost prefer we have to get a win last game
I don’t ever like us playing for a tie
I think Slovakia or Slovenia can pull a win against Russia
We need all 9 points then we would be set and just not needing to lose by a lot if I’m not mistaken lol
I think if we get anywhere between 10-13 points, it’s a secured for first. Also depends on Russia’s performance against Slovakia & Slovenia. No doubt Russia will beat Slovakia at home and Cyprus. They’ll beat Slovenia too. They need to get a draw or lose against the two teams below them and we’re laughing.
There are only 12 points left. Getting 10 points out of 12 will pretty much guarantee first place, unless the tie was against Russia and they outscore Croatia in the other three games. Just have to be careful about the away games against Cyprus and Malta. They are not pushovers like in years past. Just get the three points. And I’m not worried about Slovakia at home. Should look similar to the Slovenia game. Croatia should be in a position of padding the goal difference going into the Russia game. Even if they both win all three games, Croatia should have a better goal differential heading into that last game, so they would only need to tie. But they should win all four games because they have played the toughest road games already.
Yup.
Cyprus and Malta on the road won’t be easy.
It’s very easy to mess up one of those games and end up with a 0-0 or 1-1 score.
Malta played Russia tight and narrowly lost in both games. The scores were a bit inflated due to an injury time goal in one game, and a late penalty in the other. Possession was oddly pretty even, and Malta had some chances.
Slovakia actually lost points in 3 of their 4 games against both Cyprus and Malta. I wouldn’t put Slovakia too far ahead of either of these teams in terms of easily securing three full points.
I hope that Dalic doesn’t get too comfortable with these B lineups.
Slovenia seems to be going through some internal issues with Ilicic and Kek, and they’re results have not been good at all. Their only win was against us, and a 1-0 Malta win (that required a penalty to win it).
I expect at least one of these away games to be grueling, similar to our narrow 1-0 win against Slovakia…and I don’t want to see some Colak/Livaja lineup out there simply because they are supposed minnow teams.
We need to start calling up Brekalo, Petkovic, Vrsaljko and possibly Rebic as backups (if they have no issues being backups, and are playing regularly at their clubs).
Play more of our former U21 players like Ivanusec, Majer, Basic and Moro (if we need to rest veteran players over these games).
Calling up lesser talented players like Livaja or Colak should be a last resort. Would rather call up current U21 players than resort to this.
I have barely watched Budimir play so I can’t really comment on the little I have seen. Discussing Livaja as any part of a go-forward solution seems desperate and in my opinion, he’s not at the level required to be competitive.
I was expecting to see Livaja create or assert himself into the recent games, I’m not even sure anyone can really identify what type of player he is…he didn’t hold up the ball, he wasn’t dangerous EVER, he doesn’t take players on one vs one, he’s not very involved…..honestly, I don’t even ant to discuss the fact he might be with this team….he’s got little quality as far as I’ve seen so far!
Colak was also pretty bad if you ask me!
I’m scratching my head, wondering who our best options are going forward? Its obvious that Kramaric is several levels higher than both Livaja and Colak but he’s in a rut for us. Petkovic is in the dog house, Budimir will most likely be back soon but then again, how much value does Budimir really add? I’m asking an honest question considering I really don’t know much about him!
We can’t continue like this and then expect top be a successful team! Yes, great we got 7 points but that doesn’t solve our scoring problem!
I agree 100% about Livaja.
I think him scoring a goal masks the fact that he’s not a good player for us at all in any of the games he’s played for us.
Worse off, he plays in a position where we already have a lot of quality and I am worried that Dalic may ‘reward’ him with additional callups, putting him ahead of better players.
I think we need to still stick with Kramaric. He missed a bunch of chances, but a couple were great positioning and saves from Oblak (the same way Unai manages to get a hand up going the opposite direction at the Euros).
I think Krama has been a bit unlucky and we need to give him more time.
Ideally, we need to keep him away from being a winger and just keep him central on the field (either up top or behind a striker).
Petkovic may be in the dog house, but he still deserves at least a callup.
He’s not that useless that he deserves to be cut from the 23-man squad, especially since he plays a real position of need.
He connects pretty well with Perisic and Vlasic (two likely starters) and although anyone can debate how much time he deserves on the field…this makes him still worth a callup.
I think Budimir can be a good backup for us, especially if we’re swinging in good crosses via Sosa and Juranovic.
I really think a trio of Pasalic, Orsic and Budimir as a “joker trio” off the bench (to change things up on offense) has some potential based off the Spain comeback at the Euros, and these most recent qualifiers. These guys can score.
I say we stick it out with Krama in the starting eleven (but leave him off the wing) and pair him up with more capable players than Marko f’n Livaja…and see how it goes.
If the offense is stale, then throw in the joker trio of Budimir, Orsic and Pasalic.
WOW….I 100% agree with you!
Everybody always does.
Totally agree with your views….the team has been fortunate without an in-form striker.
Hey , you have to play who is in front of you but we should not be completely content playing 3rd rate world teams and thinking we are lighting it up- we should be looking to build on 2018 but since then we have felt a great need as a soccer country to feel happy with mediocrity. Why is that? Top 5 country should be the goal -not this crap- in this group- we should be dominate by at least 10 points at the end – we have lots of potential but being OK shouldn’t be the game plan-
http://bleacherreport.com/post/croatia-international-football/ac4645e3-6fea-463d-8e97-b2de1b72dc5e
Bring this dude back to finish the job.
LM10:
https://www.marca.com/en/football/real-madrid/2021/09/09/6139ef7222601dfb3f8b4620.html
Not to nitpick Ante, but 7 out of 9 points isn’t “perfect”, 9 out of 9 is. I guess considering the shambles we seemed to be in we’ll take it, but I would have preferred 3 wins.
I think the days of having a perfect record in qualifying are over. Even the biggest teams drop silly points to inferior teams. Yes, occasionally some teams (and we’ve done it before) make it through a cycle with close to a perfect record, but you have to expect, especially with a more condensed international calendar that some points will be lost.
As long as we take care of business the next 3 games and get the full 9 points (at Cyprus, home to Slovakia, at Malta), which I feel is doable, along with Russia probably getting a tie probably in their next 3 games, we’ll have 1st wrapped up by last match day in Poljud when we play the Russians again.
Yeah it was a great outcome this past week. I have a feeling that last game is gonna be a case of us just needing not to lose vs Russia at home but of course it’d be nice to have it already sorted by then if possible.