On this day in 2018, Croatia started their unforgettable run to the World Cup Final by defeating Nigeria 2-0 in Kaliningrad!
For the second straight World Cup, the Vatreni started out with an own goal from the opposition as Mario Mandžukić’s header in the box was deflected by Peter Etebo’s heel for Croatia’s first goal of the tournament. Luka Modrić would seal the deal in the 71st minute with a penalty kick and Croatia were out of the gates with a reasonably easy three points.
Where were you?
Switzerland also gets massive FIFA assistance every time, since FIFA’s headquarters are there. Anyone see the Portugal-Switzerland penalty shot fiasco a few weeks ago? Couldn’t believe my eyes. And it was the same German ref in the Swiss-Serb World Cup game that wouldn’t call the penalty for the Serb getting tackled in the box. That’s OK, VAR will get it right. Yeah, sure. And there was the Swiss-Northern Ireland playoff for the World Cup last year. The only goal over the two games was a penalty for Switzerland where the Swiss guy took a shot and it hit the Northern Ireland guy in the back. Hand ball. You can’t make this shit up. Oh, and a German ref officiated the second game. Gotta make sure they qualify.
Anyone see France v Nigeria in women’s world cup yesterday? France still getting massive VAR cheating assistance in world cups even in the womens lmao
Is Croatia the greatest per capita sporting nation in modern history?
and there was a Pavard hand ball that I am still trying to get the vid on or that Mbappe offside.
Two Bogus penalties and France wins the WC. Get out of here.
@Mali ante. I’d rather we where 20th in the world than flood Croatia with africans for sake of both Mbappe and Pogba. France has the cup be many parts are no longer French or civilized. Quality of civilization is demographics and demographics is destiny.
Our run in the World Cup had some luck however we did kill the group stage
We got lucky against the Danes considering Modric nearly blowing with Suba saving our skins
Nearly blew it against the rustiest too but got lucky again
Saved our best against the pommies but were tanked by the time we played france and the fix was in with the ref and var making sure we got royally screwed with the world watching
Croatia had the Group of Death.
They played the previous World Cup runners up in Argentina, and the top-ranked Pot 3 and 4 teams in Iceland and Nigeria.
If they failed to finish first, then they’d have to immediately cross paths with France. It could have been a quick out for us.
That was a brutal draw, and reminded me of Euro2016 where we were drawn against (eventual winners) Portugal, despite topping our group ahead of Spain.
Every other top team (France, Belgium, England, Colombia, Brazil, Uruguay, Spain, Portugal) got such a free pass into the Round of 16 or the Quarterfinals. It was a joke.
It was only fair that they had to eventually play someone tough.
It was amazing that we murdered everyone in the group too and got the full 9 points. Still wasn’t easy against the unbeaten Danes (who continue to be unbeaten since 2016) and a PED-infused Russian side that knocked out Spain…but whatever, we deserved it.
Mali Ante Easiest road to finals? What drugs you on? Ok yes France did have to go through Argentina, Uruguay and Belgium to reach final. But France had the easiest group and had luck and difficulty beating Australia and then tied Denmark. Denmark is a very underrated team and Croatia should have finished them on that Modric penalty. As for Russia, they were the hosts and eliminated Spain. I don’t think you realize how good those teams were the in the tournament. England actually preformed well for once. No route to a final is always easy in my mind in a World Cup. If it’s so easy then why didn’t any other team do it instead? Just touching on the America comment you made. America does have resources to excel in football and take time to develop players in football. They just choose not to because millions of Americans have football, basketball and baseball to choose instead. Don’t say they don’t have resources lol. Yes MLS is a tier 3 league but the states has gone as far as England in terms of world cup before last year. They’re not that bad as everyone portrays them to be.
@elvis. Go home and repopulate.
Will our U21 games be shown on TV in the United States?
African nations have not won because of infrastructure in the same way America despite a huge population and resources has not won. On average, there is a good chance that African players are faster which is why you see many of the players if African descent excelling in the speed category. Mbappe anyone?. Likewise, even the likes of Brazil has relied on players of African descent for years to get an edge. Unless Croatia becomes more welcoming to African migrants, they will not be able to tap this potential resources and lose soccer competitiveness over time. This post world cup was a fluke. Easiest road to finals ever and that still required two penalty shootouts and 120 minutes against England.
We don’t need to import shit. We need to pop
Out more Hrvati babies. Also Olic was clocked
as one of the fastest players to once. Western Europe
Made a very big mistake importing so many Africans
And Muslims. Who wants to be them?
It’s not all speed. Bale is one of the fastest
But what has he done last two matches for Wales?
Croatia is a very small country, protect her!
Only the Balkan/eastern region uses their own players. Croatia, Slovakia, Serbia. Hungary, Czech, and Poland are the only teams that use players with European blood. If you look at any other national team in western Europe or Scandinavia they all have colored players expect for Iceland. The french team will be all black by 2030 no question about it. The reason being African nations can’t progress well in World Cups or other sports is because they lack structure, training, equipment, coaching etc. Ghana & Senegal are the only two teams to to further than round of 16 for African sides. It’s pretty amazing to think we’ve been independent for less than thirty years, population is 4.2 million and have made two semi finals in twenty years at the WC is remarkable. It’s not the fact we need immigrants to win or go far because it clearly showed last year. It’s us competing against countries like France, Belgium, England and Germany that import others and have mass immigration. I guarantee if you subtracted every non french player on that team, they would be horseshit and wouldn’t even qualified. How many white guys were on that team? 4-5
I didn’t read the comments above.
Didn’t realize this was about to get into one of those back and forth racial things again.
@Crnkovic
It goes both ways.
Scandanavian players are expected to be physical and they always look for taller strong dudes. They didn’t like Ibrahimovic in Sweden when he was a youth, despite being a transcendent talent.
None of these countries will ever win a World Cup, until they start looking for guys who are creative and technically gifted. But Scandanavians are known for being tall and strong (and disciplined with their fitness). You can call this a stereotype as well.
I’m sure they have more than just Christian Eriksen that has this level of technical ability in the entire Scandanavia…but they will always prioritize taller, stronger, in-shape dudes above all else first.
the reason no african team has won the world cup is that they have lost their culture since the 90’s. foreign coaches have chopped and changed the way african national teams play every 2 years. by the 80’s african teams had developed unique football cultures and styles. look at algeria in 82 or cameroon in 90 or nigeria in 94, 96 and 98. but this racial stereotyping means that africans are seen as “athletes” who can just be moulded into any given strategy by a clever coach. so they have lost a lot of their identity. imagine if croatia had sam allardyce as manager for 2 years, then mourinho, then klopp, then laurant blanc etc etc for 30 years. how do you think we’d do? Spain on the other hand, have gradually developed their football culture, with the tiki taka etc until it came together with them winning 2 euros and a world cup in succession!!! how many africans did they have? none. its not about athletes, its not about race. football is way way deeper than that. thats why its the beautiful game. the only thing we need is to develop our football identity and build on our success. In any case, Rebic is the quickest player in the bundesliga
So why hasn’t an African team won a wc and don’t say lack of infra and money
We don’t need Africans we need more croatians our population needs to get bigger although that’s going to be difficult
@ Mali ante
But Croatia has players with great stamina and speed.
Španjolci are pretty ignorant folks.
No doubt a lot of them think that Luka Jović is probably Croatian, lol.
A lot of these teams do zero real scouting and just throw money at whoever is a leading scorer, or who’s name is in the paper.
Not sure why Jović cost so much. We’ll see if he can live up to the pressure now.
Just realized that Kalinic made his big mistake of 2018 in Kaliningrad, of all places. Ha!
Hahaha! Luka Jovic is gonna be a bust, just watch. He will be back at crvena zvezda in no time
serb u21 loses to austria 2-0.. red card,could’ve been 6-0. absolutely awful defending, no threats offensively. wunderkid jovic was pedestrian at best and got a yellow. pretty hilarious to watch their defense.
confident our boys will show up tomorrow
DannyJ – I just wiki’d it real quick. If we’re the only League A team that hasn’t qualified, then 3 League B teams will be brought up to compete in the playoff against us. On the other extreme, if say 5 League A teams don’t qualify, then the 4 with the best rankings will go to the playoff, and the last one misses out completely.
Wld of course be pissed if it came to all this though. No reason we shouldn’t qualify directly
Over time, Croatia is likely to suffer in soccer from lack of immigrants from Africa. Many people of African descent are able to excel in athletics involving speed, power and stamina such as soccer. If we look at countries having recent success such as England, France, and Germany their ranks are beginning to fill with players of African descent despite those people only making up a fraction of the population. As this trend continues, Croatias competitive position will likely be weakened unless they also look to utilize talent from the African continent
I know this is my third post in a row haha but a big Italian soccer page just posted about Kramarić to Milan…
Krama’s agent says, “Kramarić interests Milan but also half of Europe. Boban can certainly be an advantage since he follows the national team a lot. Difficult to say how much Hoffenheim want for him, but I believe around €30-€40m. In Giampaolo’s team, he could play 3 roles, one of the two strikers or in behind”.
Also Vlašić now has the second highest market value in the Russian first league, behind that right back Fernandes, the Russian that missed the penalty against us. Vlašić now has a value of 20 Million.
We can still finish first in our group….if we win our next game we are tied with Hungary…I’m expecting a win at Poljud vs Hungary in October. Those two wins would be huge for us and almost guarantee at least a qualifying spot.
As for Dalić, I wonder why he is leaving. Maybe he doesn’t want the fame?
How does the other group from the “A” league affect us?
That one summer… the world wore checkers
Above qualifier info is true. Cro can finish even last place in the regular qualification, and we will still almost for certain get into the playoffs by the benefit of being in League “A” in the Nation’s League. (Almost every other country that was in League A will likely advance via the current qualification. So if a League A team is left that didn’t qualify directly, that team MUST represent League A in the playoff, before having a League B team roll into that playoff slot)
As a side note, yeah, this new process does get at least 1 shitty team from League D in. But it also gives the teams at the top (League A) a double chance. Seems it’s bottom AND top favored then. Its the teams in the middle (The Ukraine’s, Slovenia’s, etc) that get screwed the most.
Prosinecki will coach us in the future, no doubt
What would better than that would be winning the euros o yeah
See I’m slow but this stuff is straight math degree stuff lol
England and spain will prob go direct so I guess we can start looking at a possible life saver
But second place at least should be achievable
Dalic sounds like will leave def after euro
Who do u guys think will take over?
Candidates?
Prosinecki?
Is that true, if Engerand and Spain go through via qualies – which of course they will – we would get their spot? If that’s true we basically can’t miss the Euros lol.
What if we also get through automatically, then who does it go to? So confusing this nations league thing.
What a ride it was! Something we will never forget.
Jebote Dannyj we’ve explained it to you a thousand times.
Top two are automatic, and the playoff was replaced by the Nations League group winners going into a playoff battle.
Each group winner in each of the leagues play each other for a spot (in case they missed out in qualifying from the current qualification process).
England topped our Nations League group in League A, so if they don’t finish top-2 in these current qualifiers… Then they get to play a playoff against the other group winners in league A (Swiss, Dutch, and Portugal). The same thing goes for League B, C, and D… which is why some people don’t like the idea of this process, since a low ranked League D team will get a Euro spot. Meaning, one of Kosovo, Belarus, Macedonia or Georgia will qualify for the Euros.
Assuming England already qualified, then (I believe) their playoff spot goes to Spain (and if Spain qualified already)… then us.
I’m not sure what happens if every single team in League A (except for us) would qualify.
I assume this would mean we automatically get in via the League A playoff spot (and would have nobody to play against)? Haha
Seems like long ago now:(
Still feels so good
Let’s hope another good kick at the euro can
Just got to get through qualifying and anything is possible
Tell me guys is there a playoff route still?
I’m so confused
@ Suba
Haha! I had the same issue. I ended up subscribing to one of those Balkan streaming apps for that game. Thank f*&k SBS showed the rest of the tournament.
For us here in Oz, that was the best winter in living memory. Because I f87ken hate winter. Cold, wet, windy, f*&ken shit weather. You saw the Cro jersey on people in the streets, from cars, hanging from cranes on building sites, my dog was draped in them, it was everywhere and it was glorious.
What a great time it was to be alive.
Whatta summer. Hopefully 2020 can bring us joy through the Euro. A true inspiration this team is.
Good picture Ante.
Tough looking bunch those boys and our wizard in the middle.
Wasted on sljivovica.
Glory days.
In bed trying to get streaming connection on Optus which was buffering all the time pretty much missed the first 20 munutes
It was the only place to watch the World Cup down under which was a disgrace
Even the prime minister apologised
Be proud, be Croatian.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kYSfdCCRh2A
And not a day goes by that we don’t remember that glorious summer. ZDS!
Happy times. We were complaining about having probs scoring b4 this game too if u remember and even after some on here were like, well, an own goal and a penalty, we still can’t score from open play. They shut up after the next game though!