The same line-up is expected, but Bilić stated it is still possible for a couple of players to be switched at the last minute. Hope to have a good game today!
reading the croatia news today it looks like bilic is going to start rakitic instead of petric who is not in good form..it says they will play with olic as the single striker with kranjcar behind him and rakitic playing at leftmid where kranjcar usually plays..i dont like starting olic as the lone striker..i would rather see budan then because he has played alot of lone striker at parma and been pretty good at holding the ball as well when he as played as the lone striker..
Hey GOOD job guys beating those Germans. I hope u guys go all they way to the final im a big fan of Croatia and have been since the 98 world cup. other than my home country Colombia, Croatia is my favorite national team....GREAT job guys
The whole play was great. Bilić's tactical changes were spot on, he really hit it with putting Kranjčar on the CAM position [which Niko said he really likes] and having Rakitić on the left. Rakitić was impressive, didn't make a single mistake all match long and Kranjčar had maybe his best game in the national team shirt. Great, great job! Proud to be Croat
Bravo Vatreni...we played with a lot of heart and brains too...I did not see any panic in our team even in the last 10 minutes. I thought Pranjic was an absolute beast out there - he was attacking and defending brilliantly. Germany had nothing going down their right side and Odonkor was a wasted sub as Pranjic put him in the back pocket... 1st place in group and, most likely, we avoid Portugal - what more can you ask of these guys? That was a fun 90 minutes...
we outplayed the germans today..our midfield was able to control the game and pranjic was great from the leftback spot..he was constantly pushing foward even after germany scored..i was so impressed how we were calm and composed after germany score..we looked like the team who was losing the way we were attacking the germans..
Hey guys! Just wanted to say congrats on today's game...you really deserved the win. I thought for sure Germany would have you guys tied up but I was wrong. You not only scored on them, you scored amazingly on them and there were a bunch of missed chances too. I haven't seen the German side handled like that in a while...great work and I look forward to seeing more of that in the next round!
First place is wrapped up thanks to the Poland/Austria tie (thank you Ivica Vastic! ). Bilic must play the entire bench against Poland on Monday as the game is meaningless. At least 5 guys have yellow cards and it will be great for them to have over a week of rest in preparation for their quarterfinal match.
Ivica....hvala ti!! Slabo smo igrali protiv Austrije ali smo pokazali kvalitetu protiv Njemacke. Moramo nastavit ovako i Kranjcar mora naucit kako se da gol. Mogli smo Njemce dobit 3 ili 4 razlike.
ur right buddy, we surely did redeem ourselves. Pranjic was awsome in the there and I like that Bilic put in Kranjcar in the middle and rakitic on the left, I thought kranjcar looked slow and uneffective against austria in the previous game and this game was a huge improvement for him, he had a couple of great chances, next time he needs to put those away. In the next game bilic is playing all subs, its an interesting experiment, I just hope that it doesnt backfire on him.
How can it backfire? Even if we lose, which I don't think we will. Some players are tired, some have yellow cards. Playing them would mean risking much more than playing subs.
It's not an experiment. It was a 100% certainty that he would do this once the Austria/Poland result was known. It gives the starters more than a week to rest, no worries about yellow card accumulation and a GREAT opportunity to work in younger guys like Vukojevic, Budan, etc to get valuable experience on such a big stage. Also, Simic will be happy to get one step closer to that 100 cap mark. However, I'm reading that Niko Kovac will be starting, which makes no sense at the age of 36 to have him out there (even if it's for half a game) and Pranjic would also start.
u guys are right the result doesnt matter, it gives the reserves a feel for the game and it gives our starters some rest, the only thing is these short tournaments depend alot on form and rhythm of the players and team, and giving the players a rest may get them out of it, thats all im saying. The setup is supposed to be Pletikosa Pranjic-Vejic-Knezevic-Simic Leko-Pokrivac-Vukojevic-Rakitic Klasnic-Petric so Simic is gona be getting closer to the 100 mark and can anyone believe that Pokrivac is gona be starting, about a year and a half ago he was playing for Varteks, crazy
