Two years ago today – July 11th, 2018 – the Vatreni would endure a third straight 120-minute game and come from behind once again to defeat England 2-1 and earn a berth to the holy land – the World Cup Final.
There is no debate. This was the single greatest Croatian sports victory in history. Sure, Ivanišević won Wimbledon. Petrović and Kukoč made it to the 1992 Olympic Gold Medal game in basketball. But all of that is dwarfed by the 2018 Vatreni and their true underdog run. Croatia trailed in all three knockout round games leading to the Final against France (Denmark, Russia, England), needing two penalty kick shootouts and an extra time affair versus the Three Lions to reach the peak of the World Cup.
And the match against England was everything a World Cup semifinal could be.
-Trippier sunk Croatian hearts early with a 4′ free kick goal
-Harry Kane could have put Croatia away in the 30′ with two point-blank chances; the last coming off the post
-Croatia finally equalize in the 68′ when Vrsaljko puts a perfect cross to Perišić, who puts a high boot to the ball for the goal
-Perišić takes control of the match four minutes later and bangs a mighty left-footed shot off the post
-Vrsaljko saves a 99′ extra time English header off the line to keep the game 1-1
-Mandžukić nearly put the game away in the 105′ but is a step too late as Pickford comes out for the save
-Mandžukić scores the biggest goal in Croatian history in the 109′ as he slips in behind the English defense!
GAME. SET. MATCH!
For a country of 4 million people to make two World Cup semifinals and one Final in the short span of 27 years since their independence is absolutely unbelievable.
The summer of 2018 was absolutely magical. There was something different in the air and I think all Croatians around the globe were aware of it. No one panicked when Croatia went down to Denmark. Or Russia. Or England.
The Vatreni were always in control of their own destiny. Every single player on that roster played at 110% for seven straights games – from Modrić and Rakitić to Subašić and Strinić.
Luka Modrić would win World Cup “Player of the Tournament” and later the 2018 Ballon d’Or.
I never thought Croatia could top what Šuker and company did in 1998, but low and behold, the 2018 version one-upped them to reach the Mecca of the sporting world.
July 11th should be a holiday in Croatia. It brought every Croatian on this planet together and literally 500,000 people – should to shoulder – back in Zagreb upon the team’s return from Russia.
The memories of 2018 will be forever branded in our heads for generations of Croatian kids to pass down to. Where were you that fateful night Croatia beat England in extra time to book their spot in the World Cup Final?
I still get goosebumps reliving the summer of 2018. How could you not?
@Pro white guy
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.www.complex.com/sports/2020/07/12-year-old-boy-arrested-racist-remarks-to-crystal-palace-wilfried-zaha
So the kid said he might show up at Zaha’s house dressed as a ghost, that’s a threat that had to be looked into you idiot.
Did you notice my comment got deleted?
Geez, even our 23rd man (Filip Bradaric) is getting in on the action.
His girl is arguably the best.
https://www.index.hr/magazin/clanak/opusteno-u-badicima-pogledajte-kako-zene-i-cure-nasih-nogometasa-provode-ljetne-dane/2196727.aspx
LOL @ Rakitic’s wife. Ha ha!
I don’t believe Rakitic’s fake story about him meeting her in a restaurant and buying coffee every day in an attempt for her to finally go out with him (with her turning down his multiple advances).
That girl is a jersey-chaser and Raketa is just a goof, lol. She snagged him easy, and it if wasn’t him, it probably would have been a teammate of his.
I dunno man.
These younger players are really lighting it up with some of the girls they are dating.
Jedvaj, Livakovic, Caleta-Car, Petkovic, Kramaric…
They may not be playas, like our boi Charlie…but they definitely aren’t settling for less.
Our France 98 team seemed to see the inner beauty in women…but it looks like some of them (i.e. Stimac and Bilic) dropped their inner beauty wives and are being inspired by our younger National Team players.
Zgodan je!
There are no lady killers on this team anymore. Now we’ve got fashion designers.
https://youtu.be/Y0hOyrIHhdc
Very sad song by Sinovi Hercegovine. If you don’t tear up watching that you are not a Croat.
@Pro white guy
What did the kid say?
What most people don’t realize is that Denmark is on an insane unbeaten streak going back to 2016.
They draw a lot of teams, but don’t lose.
Also…
Ćorluka’s bouncy hair distracted Akinfeev.
@pro croatian guy asks me: “You have a problem calling white cetniks pollutants?”
SHIT FOR BRAINS, different black nationalities and ethnicities have fought countless wars against each other. As a matter fact, they enslaved each other and sold black slaves to other races. Now go ask any black man if that’s an excuse to be a TRAITOR to their own race. You fucking MORON.
we could have come second and ended up on the hard side…we played well and ended up making our own destiny truth.
Dalic had some philosophies that worked for him although I’d never pick Modric to be my main penalty taker and I think he forced that and got LUCKY…but he could have cost us vs Denmark!
The team came together at the right time! Dalic got rid of Kalinic, we had some success with the 5 subs winning a game for us and they had belief in their play and each other …the potential was always there, someone needed to take control and get the players invested.
So I think we can say a couple things
The first is that croatia did get lucky in world cup 2018
– They won two penalty shootouts in a row which is a coin toss
-They ended up in a much easier side of the bracket…plenty of other teams won their group also but ended up on the hard side
Like Maminjo and some others point out….i’m perfectly content enjoying the win even though there was luck becasue generally luck is almost involved in these things especially for underdog teams… there is no point in auditing every goal b/c no team wins a wolrd cup with a favorable bounce
that being said….THE BIG QUESTION IS THIS
so many on this site are just result orienting… how the game ends is how they judge the players ability, heart, intelligence, dedication to croatia
Because we did well in WC 2018, so many here now think modric is a great leader, this team has heart, and dalic is an incredible coach….
but the team could’ve easily been bounced by denmark…. would you still have felt the same way then?
this was arguably the same team that needed a win in ukraine, that the head of this site was calling for a team field walk off before the game….and there were many sympethizers
@pro croatian guy is a such a fucking imbecile. While the Western world is currently in an antiWhite hysterical hate fest blaming ONLY whites for things every other race has also done, pro croatian guy’s head is buried deep up his ass talking about 100 year old phantom chetiniks, “antiChrist jews” and “Illumaniti” suppressing Croatians.
@pro croatian guy wanted to know WHAT the 12 year old kid in England who got arrested for “hate speech” said. He said nothing worse than what YOU say about Serbians and Jews. So YOU can’t complain when YOU are arrested and jailed next.
** Rebic’s goal against Argentina, while a phenomenal finish, came about because their goalie muffed an attempted pass to his defender.
Well, do you remember how many chances we created because of our high pressure from our attackers….don’t they get credit for that? Didn’t they create a few blunders from each game? The answer is YES. In Ante’s case, he was chasing down a defender, the defender back passed the ball to his keeper who was standing on top of the 6 yard box and Rebic was sprinting after him only 3-4 yards away…of course that’s called a forced error and not just a blunder…it happens all the time but it wouldn’t have if Rebic wasn’t attacking him soo aggressively.
** Getting on the easy side of the draw. France, Belgium, Brazil, and our bogey team, Portugal on the other side. On our side, Spain was knocked out by Russia.
“EASY”? Russia played at home…it’s never “easy” playing a team at their home and going down 1-0 on a fantastic goal they scored.
Something I noticed from you is that you never mentioned we scored 7 goals in the first round and we only conceded 1. Lets look at how other “comparable teams did”. Portugal won 1 game and tied 2 (they tied Spain and Iran), Denmark got 1 win and tied 2 (they tied France and Australia), Mexico won 2 and lost to Sweden, England squeaked by TUNISIA 2-1 they beat Panama and lost to Belgium, Colombia lost to Japan and won 2 games,
I mention those teams and games because you said this: “Getting on the easy side of the draw”…didn’t we earn that “easy side of the draw”? we didn’t have a team like Panama (11 goals against), Tunisia (8 goals against), Serbia (4 goals against), Australia (5 goals against), Costa Rica (5 goals against)…
** Mandzukic’s tying goal against Denmark a result of a Danish defensive clearance hitting a defender square in the face and bouncing to Super Mario.
Well, there’s a little more to how this happened. Rebic sends a pass between two defenders to Vrsaljko who’s inside the 18 yard box and the pass became a 50/50 ball…Vrsaljko went at it full force and won the tackle, the ball ended up getting smashed directly at a Denmark defender who couldn’t control it (it was going a hundred miles an hour) and deflected off his own player…Mandzukic did well to turn and finish. Denmark was a very physical and stingy team…they were actually a good team with a strategy to completely kill any momentum we could get. Their goal, after the ball was thrown into our box from a throw-in looked like it was from a game of 6 year olds scrambling in front of the net.
Denmark was tough to play against, that’s the truth and I’m not sure many realize how tough they were. They fouled us 19 times to our 5 against them.
**“Against Argentina, if they score on the attempt when Subasic is out of goal, what happens next? Perhaps we buckle down and win anyways. Perhaps what happens is that the game stays tight, we open up in the second half, as did Argentina, and give up another goal. Which means we play all our starters against Iceland and Mandza doesn’t rest”
You asked “if they score on the attempt when Subasic is out of goal, what happens next”? Look man, we went down against Denmark, Russia, England, France (we deserved better…we didn’t lose because of bad luck, we lost because the ref decided the game) and in each case we found a way back…you suggest we wouldn’t have gas in the tank and yet even in the finals, after all those extra minutes played we had 65.5% of the play, we had more passes, won more aerial duels, we had 4 more corner kicks, our passing success was 83% to their 68%.
**” We lost the final, the game which we most deserved to win, because we finally ran out of luck.”
That’s bullshit man…our luck didn’t run out, we got completely screwed by an Argentinian ref that wasn’t suitable to ref that game, plain and simple.
Our loss to Portugal came down to Strinic having 3 options and he chose the worst option of the 3. Instead of trying to send the ball in the box or sending it into the 23rd row…he tried to get past 2 guys and we all saw what happened. There was no mystery…it was a tough game and we made a costly mistake…that’s the way it goes.
I don’t understand why anyone would think we were “lucky” in this past World Cup, I really don’t! Our path wasn’t as easy as this guy selo says we were.
“And let’s look at that goal. For some reason, after Perisic makes a Hecrulean effort to bully position over, I think, Trippier to win the header, what was John Stones thinking? Sitting around, with his thumb us his ass, watching the ball, and allowing Super Mario to sneak in and score a brilliant winning goal. If a defender playing over 40’s, third division amateur soccer made that mistake, his team mates would be reaming him out. Fantastic effort by Perisic and Mandzukic. Would any other defender in the WC have made that mistake? Who knows.”
Perisic outworked Kyle Walker and Mandzukic was between two defenders and that play happened in less than 3 seconds. Pivaric tried to send in a cross, it was cut off by a reaction (Kyle Walker) and ended up in the air. Perisic challenged for the air ball and won…the head ball had the exact amount of weight and pace on it to get past Walker and Trippier. From the time Perisic headed the ball until it was in the back of the net…it took less than 3 seconds…call it shitty defending if you want but it was a perfect goal!
Selo, you tend to drum up a lot of “lucky” comments and disregard our path vs other teams path, I don’t really understand that. France played Uruguay without Uruguay’s best goal scorer Cavani who already had 4 goals. Belgium beat Brazil and yet Brazil carried the play, had more shots, more possession, more chances to score…England played Sweden, a team that squeaked into the World Cup and were in a degenerate group where everyone underachieved and Mexico beating Germany didn’t look soo good once they BARELY squeaked by S Korea and got severely spanked by Sweden….all teams in this group were fragile and Jeckyll and Hyde.
Are you Croatian? Just asking!
Anonymous,
your point is valid. Corluka definitely caused the confusion after Vida’s header. I retract that instance as being lucky.
Anonymous,
Interesting comment about Corluka. I’ll check it out tomorrow.
Fellow from the selo
Vidas goal went in not because of Vida but because of Corluka who brilliantly misdirects the goalie by making it look like he would make a play on the ball then dummies it past him into the net. Absolutely nothing lucky about the goal. Russia’s second goal was on a non excistent foul ref pushing home team. Modrić PK on Denmark goalie was off his line by at least two yards should have been retaken as England missed pks where in the tournament but yes Croatia was lucky.
Maminjo,
perhaps you do have 20/20 vision but fail to read. Can you please point to me where I said we were lucky in 2016? I said that we played great but had poor luck when Iceland beat Austria at the death, which put Iceland in the more difficult group and brought Portugal, with whom we have always had problems, in our group. Croatia were far superior to Portugal on the day. Portugal should have had at least two players red carded due to violent fouls. Vida could have had two goals, and Perisic hit the post before Strinic lost the ball and we tried to defend a 70 metre long 3 against 1 break, which finished us. Where in that do I say we were lucky, other than being in the weaker knock out group? Are you denying we were in the weaker group? If we were in the other group, with Germany and France, and Italy was in our group, we would talk about Italian luck.
As for 2018, we had a phenomenal team that was well organized, motivated, skillful, and tactically and mentally strong. But in a tournament format, in a low scoring sport where getting the first goal means a 70 per cent chance of victory, how can you disregard luck? Look at our loss to Turkey in the Euro
2008.
We were a far stronger team, but only scored in ET at the death. Yet Turkey tied it from the kickoff, which led to PK’s, which is always a crap shoot (unless you are Germany). Was Turkey the better team, or did they have luck when the ref didn’t call the foul on Simunic as he attempted to clear the last second hoof of the ball into our box, leading to a fantastic finish by Turkey? What did you say when you saw the goal? That Turkey deserved it?
And what about our Golden Generation loss to France in the 1998 WC semi final? We completely stifled France and took the lead. Up steps Thuram, who played well over 100 games for France, who scores two beautiful goals. Were it, let’s say, Srna, or Brehme, or Lahm, who had histories of scoring from the full back position, you could say they were deserving goals. But those two goals by Thuram were the only ones he scored for Les Bleus. To me, that is shitty luck on our behalf. What would you call it?
You believe Denmark’s goal against us on the long throw is more unlikely that a clearance hitting a team mate in the face and bouncing to an unmarked opponent right in on goal? I respectfully disagree. If you look at the Argentina highlights, they almost scored a similar goal against Subasic. But I do acknowledge that Manza had a sitter that he fluffed in the first half. Perhaps that makes the Argentina miss on the empty goal a wash.
Do you think we weren’t fortunate to be able to rest almost the entire first squad in the game against Iceland? We played great, but all our other group results went in our favor. Again, does Mandza have the fuel in the tank to score that goal against England if he doesn’t rest that game?
And let’s look at that goal. For some reason, after Perisic makes a Hecrulean effort to bully position over, I think, Trippier to win the header, what was John Stones thinking? Sitting around, with his thumb us his ass, watching the ball, and allowing Super Mario to sneak in and score a brilliant winning goal. If a defender playing over 40’s, third division amateur soccer made that mistake, his team mates would be reaming him out. Fantastic effort by Perisic and Mandzukic. Would any other defender in the WC have made that mistake? Who knows.
We had a spectacular tournament and we were harshly unlucky the final to not win, after being the far superior team. I, as all of you, were crushed with the result. It wasn’t until I saw the video of the team drunk, singing, and celebrating in their hotel after the game that I started to feel better. If second is great for them, it sure as heck is for me.
I still think that to deny that there was some luck involved with Croatia in 2018 is naive. We had poor luck in other tourneys. What is so bad about being on the fortunate side for once? Other than the final, of course.
Despite that, I appreciate the conversation, or debate. You bring up some valid points and it is obvious you are knowledgable about football.
Hajduk started 7 Croats, and all five of their substitutes were Croats (playing 12 in total this game).
Several young players got some burn, and two goals were scored by a newcomer (Ćuić) who I’ve never heard of.
When they subbed out a couple of their crappy foreign veteran players, they didn’t drop off (and won the game in injury time).
It’s too late for Hajduk to catch that second Champions League spot, but hopefully this is a lesson learned.
Just play the Croatian youth, and stop burning money on low ceiling untalented foreign players.
Selo guy, I’m busy today but I’ll follow up with you tomorrow!
Lucky? You’re mentally challenged!
Just quickly though you’ve asked “have you seen”…. WTF man, is this your first time watching this sport? Have you any idea what offensive pressure can do or are you a PlayStation expert?
I’ll be back tomorrow, I promise!
Hajduk beat Dinamo today…hopefully this brings some momentum to Hajduk and is the start of something big!
Congratulations to all you Hajduk fans out there!
^
You have a problem calling white cetniks pollutants?
@Pro croatian guy, I already proved over and over and over again you’re fucking moron.
Who is this 19 year old with two goals today for Hajduk Mario Cuic
Rebic with a beautiful assist
Anyone have a link to the Hajduk game
Ok back to the Selo My fine fellow,Maminjo has re-taken the throne !
wow.
I retract my previous comment
Nah, I have 20/20 vision.
Your argument is that we were lucky this tournament as well as in Euro 2016, and my argument was that we were not lucky in either tournament.
This is measured by WHO played the best, WHO dominated/outchanced their opponents, and whether or not that team won.
If the team with the most shots/chances/possession does not win, then they were probably unlucky not to win (or had a poor referee influence the game in the opposite direction).
This is what happened to us these past two tournaments. This isn’t even factoring in that the ‘Strength of our Opponents’ was FAR higher than the opponents that any other top teams played. That is remarkably unlucky. It’s Netherlands-level unlucky.
I wish we could have played teams like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and get an automatic bye into the next round…or play Tunisia/Panama and then rest the third game.
Very, very unlucky that we were in the Group of Death and very, very unlucky that we were drawn so early against the Euro champs at Euro2016, despite topping our group.
Also, are you seriously still pushing the ‘unlikely’ goals that we scored?
It’s easy to end this argument…
Sure, the Argentina goalie messed up, but that was due to our pressing style of play.
It was only a matter of time before someone was going to do that with Mandzo, Rebic and Perisic constantly hounding you. I’m actually surprised we didn’t score more goals from defender/goalkeeper errors. Just that one and the one against Hugo Lloris.
The goal against Denmark took a bunch of deflections…because of the way they play suffocating defense and how they crowd their box. Watch the Denmark game again. We actually had this happen MULTIPLE times in their box, with crazy deflections that were inches from going into their net.
We deserved to score at LEAST two more goals that game from all that work. It was bound to happen, and it was never going to be a pretty goal against Denmark.
The fact that you bring Denmark up is hilarious, especially since THEY (of all teams) scored an EVEN MORE unlikely goal from a deep throw-in that slipped under our goalkeeper’s armpit in the first minute of the match!
They essentially scored on their only real good chance they had in the game, and it was a ridiculous goal. Yet you bring up our goal?
At the end of the game…We also had a Rebic breakaway, completely dribbling out Kasper Schmeichel, then trying to ‘run’ the ball into the net…only to be fouled from behind…with the defender NOT being handed a red card, AND Modric failing to score the penalty?!?!
I’m sorry bro, THAT is crazy unlucky (along with poor referreeing, all in one nice package). That game was like Turkey 2008 all over again. 99 out of 100 times, if you re-run that scenario, it results in a goal. There was no luck in that game for us.
Modric botching three penalties, and scoring on two of them is nothing crazy. There is always someone who gets lucky on penalties.
What’s more important is HOW MANY penalties do teams get? We got two in the entire tournament (just as many as Australia got) and we deserved much, much more considering how many fouls and chances we had in the opposing box.
England got one against Colombia, France got one against us, France got another one against Argentina, Russia even got one against Spain….These were all critical game-changing penalties that decided the outcome of these games, all during the knockout phase. All of these calls could have gone either way. We’d never get that.
We need a two-footed Denmark ankle-tackle from behind (on a clear breakaway) to be given a penalty…but no red card. Lol.
How lucky we are.
Cheers to the new king fellow from the Selo
All valid points
Maminjo,
you make some great points in your initial post.
No one is saying that Croatia did not have a great team with great spirit. The issue is that without having some luck, there is a good chance we don’t proceed to the final.
Against Argentina, if they score on the attempt when Subasic is out of goal, what happens next? Perhaps we buckle down and win anyways. Perhaps what happens is that the game stays tight, we open up in the second half, as did Argentina, and give up another goal. Which means we play all our starters against Iceland and Mandza doesn’t rest. Even with that break, he was drained for the final. How effective would he have been in the knockout without that break?
Have you seen a goalie at the WC level mess up as poorly as did Romero for our first goal? Have you ever seen a clearance hit a fellow defender square in the face and have the ball bounce directly to an opposition forward, as happened against Denmar? Have you seen goals such as Perisic’s against England called back for a high foot foul? How many pk’s have you seen like the one taken by Modric?
As for auditing key moments of the games, I plead guilty. You often see a 6 run inning in baseball, or 3 major scores in a quarter in football, or a 14 or more point run in basketball, or two or more goals scored in 3 minutes in hockey. It is so difficult to score in soccer that often the margin of victory is due to a single moment, and the nature of the rest of the game flows from that moment.
We played great at the tournament, but how many other teams were able to rest all starters in their final preliminary round games? Again, we played well, but we also had luck on our side, all the way until the final.
Our first half against France was our best half of the tournament. Yet despite that, we were down by a goal because of poor officiating. Our luck abandoned us and two phantom fouls were called which led to France’s goals. And you can see France panicking in the second half up until their third goal, which was caused because we needed to open up, leaving our defence and Subasic less shielded. Up until that third goal, they were freezing under Croatia’s press, often giving up the ball in their own half.
We lost the final, the game which we most deserved to win, because we finally ran out of luck. We were far superior, but lost the rub. As I have heard in tournaments, better to be lucky that good. We happened to be very good this tournament, but lacked luck in the crucial game.
As for Portugal, it appears you agree with me that we weren’t lucky in Euro 2016. We were the better team, did great to beat Spain, and ended up in the weaker knock out group, but because the ref decided to not issue red cards for violent fouls, and Strinic losing the ball when he was second last man back, we fell at the end.
Maybe you need glasses bro.
An ignorance plea will do him fine.
Neuer’s gonna get killed by the media for being an Ustaša sympathizer lol
Poor Tottenham. Mourinho deserves better players. They should sign Mandzukic.
Having watched this sport for so long
I have no doubt that it isn’t always on
The up and up.
The draws in the last two tournaments were tough, but even look at 2012 and 2014. We got Italy and Spain in Euro 2012, and were screwed by the ref against Spain (go figure). And Spain and Italy end up meeting in the final. Then in 2014, we get Brazil in the opening game (got screwed by the ref again!) and Cameroon (who we destroyed) and Mexico (which are never easy).
Beautiful!
Him and Big Joe should duet.
Have you guys seen this…hilarious!
Manuel Neuer singing in Croatian
https://www.index.hr/mobile/clanak.aspx?category=sport&id=2197566
The frogs were dancing on 4 leaf clovers against us…nobody had more fortune than them in one game.
We can all list at least half a dozen instances of luck they had and that’s excluding the dubious penalty.
Not to mention England allowed 4 goal in the group stage. Meanwhile Croatia allowed 1 and that was a penalty. LOL
England are garbage and to say they were going all the way was so laughable.
They lost three game (One to us and two to Belgium)
Beat Panama in they’re first WC 6-2
Got a last minute win against Tunisia
Stole the Colombia game and had difficulty without them having James
Then beat Sweden a team that was they’re only decent opponent until us.
England will always be garbage. Take a look at the last six group stage games between Croatia and them.
Croatia
1-0 win vs Turkey
2-2 draw vs Czech’s
2-1 win vs Spain
2-0 win vs Nigeria
3-0 win vs Argentina
2-1 win vs Iceland
England
1-1 draw vs Russia
2-1 win vs Wales (last minute goal)
0-0 draw vs Slovakia
2-1 win vs Tunisia (last minute goal)
6-2 win vs Panama (keep in mind it’s fucking Panama)
1-0 loss vs Belgium
I don’t care what anyone says. England are like the leafs. Haven’t won jack since the 60’s, say next time will be they’re time, always rely on youth to bring them far.
We’re resting our starters against teams like Portugal (at Euro96), Argentina (at France98), Poland (at Euro2008), Spain (at Euro2016), and Iceland (at WC2014).
…and actually winning most of these games, lol.
Other teams get to chill against Saudi Arabia and Panama, and we have to somehow beat elite teams while resting, haha.
Maminjo, to je istina!
I know right? 😉
I’m waiting for the day we get to play a team like Saudi Arabia, lol.
Or get put into a group where the second strongest team is Algeria or Northern Ireland, lol.
Maminjo, great post brother!
@Fellow from the selo
you are totally wrong on this.
You cannot play down the Group of Death.
Argentina and Nigeria were absolutely not weak at all. Nigeria was actually very underrated in this tournament and would have gone far if they weren’t in our group. Iceland were in the Euro2016 quarterfinals the previous tournament, and couldn’t compete against us and Nigeria. That’s how good this group was.
Don’t listen to the media harping on Messi and the Argentina squad. If they were so bad, then why did they almost beat France in the knockout phase?
They were up 2-1 and eventually lost 4-3 to France (who, of course, got a penalty). Argentina out shot, out chanced, out possessed and out passed France).
Every other top team in this tournament got an automatic bye into the knockout round, and got to play teams like Egypt, Panama, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Costa Rica, etc.
We, on the other hand, had to beat the Euro2016 quarterfinalists (Iceland), and a very strong and underrated Nigeria team (who made the knockouts the previous World Cup), and the previous World Cup finalists in Argentina…just to get into the knockout phase. Everyone but us, got the ‘easy side of the draw’ (as you put it).
Also…are you seriously auditing every goal and how ‘lucky’ they were? lol
When has a team ever won games in a tournament without a deflected goal, a penalty, or a mistake made by an opponent?
You’re going to call back every goal we scored like this, but ignore the bullshit goals that were scored on us? Or the insane amount of chances and unlucky goalposts we hit versus these other teams?
Fact: We outshot and outchanced every team we played.
We hit the post or woodwork EVERY single game, and sometimes multiple times per game. Badelj hit the woodwork against Iceland, Rakitic’s free kick against Argentina, Perisic in every game of the knockout phase, etc..We also missed the most sitters too (Kovacic and Rebic in front of the Nigerian goal, Rebic in every knockout game, etc)
We were playing with an out-of-form and injured goalkeeper, who was giving away free goals in the knockout phase (Denmark under his armpit, Russia standing flatfooted on the first goal, slow reaction and half-attempted save on Tripper’s low-and-safe free kick, a similar late and flat-footed delayed reaction to all of France’s goals).
He faced the least amount of on-target shots of any keeper in the knockout phase, and let in more than half of them in. The guy had no hamstring left.
You can count on one hand how many good saves he made this tournament, and somehow we still made the final.
Also, I can’t believe you are bringing up Euro 2016. We were incredibly unlucky in that tournament.
Watch that Spain vs Croatia game again. We were playing our subs, and Rakitic hit the underside of the woodwork AND side of the post with his possibly game-tying shot. Spain were also gifted a penalty at the end of the game (while Croatia was robbed of a similar penalty claim just a few minutes earlier, the commentators could not believe it).
The ref was desperate to win that one for Spain, and we still beat them.
Portugal was even worse, with the ref allowing Portugal to play a ‘hack a Croat’ strategy. One yellow card in the entire game, full of very hard cleats-up fouls.
Despite this, Croatia hit two posts and had an ignored handball.
This is not Croatia having luck on their side, lol.
I’m not even going to mention the completely one-sided Czech game where the anti-HNS fans did whatever they could to make sure we lose that game.
We were actually unlucky in both of these tournaments, and had to play well above and beyond every single one of our opponents to pass through.
We played multiple top teams in those two tournaments like Spain, Argentina, France, Portugal, England and very, very good teams in Nigeria, Denmark, Iceland…
The worst team we played over these two tournaments was probably Turkey.
Compare that to teams like Belgium or (Euro winners) Portugal, who barely played anyone these past two tournaments and both went far.
They got to play teams like Morocco, Iran, Tunisia, Hungary, Japan, Panama….WTF?!?!
The majority of the teams they faced are not even as good as the weakest team we faced in two tournaments (Turkey). It’s not just these two. Look at Uruguay, Germany, Brazil, Spain….the teams they all faced include quite a few laughable teams.
We literally got NO easy teams at all in two tournaments, we completely dominated and outchanced ALL of these teams, we missed the most sitters and hit the woodwork countless times, and we got screwed in almost all the games against the top teams.
We’re easily the team with the least amount of luck and the most outside factors (refs) working against us in these two tournaments.
You need to get some glasses, bro
Real Modric:
https://www.marca.com/en/football/international-football/album/2020/07/12/5f0ad25aca4741295a8b4590_2.html
Good teams make their own luck.
How many times were we on the wrong side of it since ’98 too?
I’d say we were due.
….and Modric’s penalty against Akinfeev, where Akinfeev gets hand to the ball before the ball hits the post, flies across the face of goal, and barely tucks inside the far post.
Oh, forgot one.
In World Cup, Vida’s lame ass header against Russia bounces between the goalie and the defender, who were both waiting for the other to clear the ball.
Against Portugal, Vida either mistimes his offensive header, or steals it off of Mario’s head.
Croatia were definitely better in the second half and in overtime against England. When Modric and co. gained their composure, England’s midfield didn’t have a sniff at the ball. But Perisic’s goal could have easily been called a foul. In that key moment, we had luck.
If you look at most games of the tournament, we had the rub.
1. Our group was considered the Group of Death, but both Argentina and Nigeria were weaker than most thought they would be.
2. In Argentina game, Argentina missed the net when Subasic was out of goal.
3. Rebic’s goal against Argentina, while a phenomenal finish, came about because their goalie muffed an attempted pass to his defender.
4. Because of the previous group results, we were able to rest most players in the final group game against Iceland, which was key for a squad that was down to one striker.
5. Getting on the easy side of the draw. France, Belgium, Brazil, and our bogey team, Portugal on the other side. On our side, Spain was knocked out by Russia.
5. Mandzukic’s tying goal against Denmark a result of a Danish defensive clearance hitting a defender square in the face and bouncing to Super Mario.
6. Two penalty shootout wins.
Everything went our way…..until the final.
Compare this to Euro 2016, where we were playing great and had the easier side of the knockout draw.
France, Spain, Italy, and Germany in the other side. The only tough team we had was Belgium….until the last kick of the last preliminary round game, Iceland scored against Austria, which put Portugal in our group.
Ronaldo and the young hot shot guy whose name I can’t remember could have been red carded for stamping and following though on tackles with stud showing, but nothing given. We are the better team, hit the post in extra time, but, of course, lose to Portugal.
You need to gel and be a good team, but you need to have luck.
Yea I remember that. Jordan Pickford is trash.
English keeper trash taking Mandzo after taking him out … a few mins before his goal, sweet ass revenge
The LA Croats are on Kobe’s dick touch.
England was better in the first half, but then Croatia woke up and destroyed them.
I cannot believe England survived those 30 minutes after Perisic scored. We kept coming at them, and they were hanging on by a thread. Persic cracking the post, Rebic missing a sitter, Mandzo narrowly missing…It was a travesty that it had to go into extra time.
Thing settled down a bit in the first part of extra time and Sime Vrsaljko cleared an excellent chance for them off the line…then it happened all over again. Complete onslaught, with England hanging on by a thread…until they couldn’t anymore, and Mandzo scored.
Krama trying to score there at the end, should have made it 3-1 with the wide open Perisic to his left. Oh well.
England actually got off easy that game. Should have been a 3-1 or possibly 4-1 result after such a one-sided affair in the second half of the game. Total dominance.
Croatia was not lucky against England they where better by some margin Kane was offside on both of his two shots both of which where saved by Subasic. Mandzukic was robed by English goalkeeper who completely and recklessly took him out should have been a PK and straight red so no more stupid comments of Croatia was lucky.
Great omment about not being lucky in the final. Some people believe that the final was fixed. If so, the perfect time to screw us would have been denying Perisic’s high foot goal against England. Had it been called back, it would have been a plausible decision. Would have given Fifa the perfect WC final.
@Lika
Kovačić missed the previous two fixtures with an Achilles injury, so maybe Lampard didn’t want to bring him back to soon.
The good news is that the Chelsea fans are having a meltdown online over why their best player of the season was not subbed in.
That says alot about Kovačić’s development.
I haven’t embraced Twitter can someone link to Engerand-bashing comedy cos i do like that
Kovacic, what the hell is going on? Dude went from hero to zero.
Ironically, I thought we played much better against France than England- we had good minutes against England but we also got lucky – so great to revisit that match against England- best game Perisic played for Croatia
Seeing the English cry never gets old.
On a side note Kalinic scored today.
Man this game was amazing. I truly can’t find the words to explain how I felt during it
If you guys don’t follow @lavatreni on instagram I recommend you do. They just posted the funniest roast video of England I’ve ever seen. Well done boys!
Breaking English hearts never felt so good!