On June 27 2018 07:27 snailz wrote:
Croatia didnt have a good game vs Iceland, but still won. From starting 11 vs Argentina, only Modric (subbed off in 60) and Perisic (full match+goal) played, rest were reserve squad. Two important players were subbed in around 70. min: Lovren came on and in less than 5 minutes gave a stupid penalty away (hi Liverpool fans?), but Rakitic really upped the game for us when Iceland had to go full on attack.
Considering we were in same qualifying group as Iceland and finished second behind them, winning vs motivated and full lineup Iceland in World Cup is really nice. It goes to show how much we can be sad about last Euro when we had worst manager one can ever hope to have. Seriously, go look up his CV, his name is Ante Čačić. Only up side is we were KO by Portugal who eventually won the whole thing, for whatever that's worth. So sad still...
As for 1/16, I see some people shit on Denmark but in all seriousness, Croatia almost always plays better vs very prestigious teams and I honestly expect match vs Denmark to be very close. If we had to play France, I wouldn't expect us to go through but we'd play a better game. When ur a country with only 4 million ppl it's only natural u get "horny" vs big nations and Denmark, with all the respect and love we have for them ever since Euro '96, is not up there. Hopefully we can go through, and then it's probably Spain in QF.
Our manager now is decent, nothing special but not completely incompetent. This is the last chance for this generation to do something, after Modric, Mandzukic, Rakitic retire it's gonna be hard, and if they never reach semis it's gonna be depressing, considering the roles the current players have in top clubs a lot of people are saying this squad is actually better than the one that won 3rd place in WC '98 (France)...
p.s. how did that Yankee predict we'll "trash the group", I was half expecting us to finish last with all the drama happening around the Big Daddy of CRO football just few weeks prior to WC...
Croatia didnt have a good game vs Iceland, but still won. From starting 11 vs Argentina, only Modric (subbed off in 60) and Perisic (full match+goal) played, rest were reserve squad. Two important players were subbed in around 70. min: Lovren came on and in less than 5 minutes gave a stupid penalty away (hi Liverpool fans?), but Rakitic really upped the game for us when Iceland had to go full on attack.
Considering we were in same qualifying group as Iceland and finished second behind them, winning vs motivated and full lineup Iceland in World Cup is really nice. It goes to show how much we can be sad about last Euro when we had worst manager one can ever hope to have. Seriously, go look up his CV, his name is Ante Čačić. Only up side is we were KO by Portugal who eventually won the whole thing, for whatever that's worth. So sad still...
As for 1/16, I see some people shit on Denmark but in all seriousness, Croatia almost always plays better vs very prestigious teams and I honestly expect match vs Denmark to be very close. If we had to play France, I wouldn't expect us to go through but we'd play a better game. When ur a country with only 4 million ppl it's only natural u get "horny" vs big nations and Denmark, with all the respect and love we have for them ever since Euro '96, is not up there. Hopefully we can go through, and then it's probably Spain in QF.
Our manager now is decent, nothing special but not completely incompetent. This is the last chance for this generation to do something, after Modric, Mandzukic, Rakitic retire it's gonna be hard, and if they never reach semis it's gonna be depressing, considering the roles the current players have in top clubs a lot of people are saying this squad is actually better than the one that won 3rd place in WC '98 (France)...
p.s. how did that Yankee predict we'll "trash the group", I was half expecting us to finish last with all the drama happening around the Big Daddy of CRO football just few weeks prior to WC...
To me the Iceland game looked really relaxed from our side. Like. They barely started playing in the second half and scored 2 goals. I'm not that worried, Denmark looked like shit on the offence this tournament, although they defend really well