One figure in Portugal is important, because he could knew everything about Croatia. His name is Eduardo, third goalkeeper of Portugal, who plays two years in Croatian league. Marko Pjaca should enter earlier. Day after brings the responsibility of Croatian coach. Before his coaching career he was TV service person. So that is the main thing for making jokes: "Stick with TV's, not with football". On the other hand, Santos has degree in electrical and telecommunications engineering. He had much better (tele)communication with his players. It was also hard because of Portuguese athletic abilities: William Carvalho, Pepe, Joao Mario, Danilo, Renato Sanches, Nani, Quaresma, etc. Perisiv was prevented, either he wanted to play safer, or he really could not do anything. Anyway, sad match, but Portugal also had sad moments, EURO 2000, 2004, 2012, WC 2006. Their players were also sad in that moments. Sometimes you get happiness, sometimes sorrow. Boa sorte en proximas jogas.
One thing is certain: all top-teams become such as they were expected before the Euro. All princesses become cenderellas. Portugal won becouse of surprisingly novations in start-eleven, hard pressing on their half and minimum lacks on field for Croatia.
Do I really need to post Ronaldo's quotes about Iceland? Here he is disrespecting a group of brave young players with no real stars from the smallest country in Euro history. And that team played more proactive football in all 3 of their games so far compared to both Portugal and Croatia last night. Ronaldo is one of the wealthiest and most successful footballers in history. A little graciousness and sportsmanship would not kill him. I understand a little negative football when it's David vs. Goliath and it's your only chance. But Portugal and Croatia are both teams full of big transfer fees and top Champions League/Europa League experience. To play a game like that with no shots on target for almost 120 minutes is disrespectful to fans. I'd like to see the Iceland players criticize these teams in the press. Except they probably won't because maybe they have a little more class.
In football, teams need to have different attitude. If you observe some of the winning teams and coaches in the last 20 years, a lot of them had a wild, crazy, frenetic, aggressive, conflict, violent, narcissistic, arrogant, angry, daring, rude, risky, brave nature which comes because of their environment, personal issues...but also, you need the magic touch in the game. You can't win anything just with nice style, good ball flow, fair play, shaking hands...this Croatian generation is mostly calm, the team made of listeners, followers, authority worship, younger players respect older players too much, just because they are 5-10 years in the team...in the team without any serious result. It seems that Croatia doesn't have the winning mentality, they had this in 1996, 1998, different type of players with personalities from the beginning of this short review. I though that this EURO could inspire them, since Croatia played again in France, just like in 1998. They were brave in the group, but in the knock out stage, they became vulnerable with fear of success. They wanted to save their energy during the first half time and attack in the second half. For sure they wanted to avoid the penalties. Again they thought that they will attack, slide easy on the wings, but Croatia plays very hard against defensive teams. Every coach with experience knows that. Just like in handball, Croatia has issues with winning mentality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatia_men's_national_handball_team 4th, 3rd, 2nd, 5th, 2nd, 5th, 3rd, 6th...a lot of tournaments with similar ending on EURO's, WC's, Summer Olympics. In previous football competitions, Croatia had sad things, either their wrong tactics, old players who play on a account of some old glory, connections, nepotism...wrong coaches, bad referees, fan riots, empty stadiums on domestic matches...but Croatia always had good players, but no one managed to use this properly. Qualifications for the EURO 2000: Croatia underestimated their opponents, since Croatia was the Bronze Medal holder at WC 1998, opponents will score own goals, when all mighty Croatia arrives and because of that they lost in Ireland, made draws with Scotland and draw with Macedonia away, Croatia had 0-1 until 80th minute. This was the key match. With that two points extra, Croatia could end 2nd. Malta - they also underestimated them, hard victory, 2-1. They have focused only on Yugoslavia. The match in Serbia was interrupted because someone turned off the electricity after better Croatian edition. Croatia was eliminated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Euro_2000_qualifying_Group_8 Errors at World Cup 2002: invitation of old players like: Prosinecki (33), Suker (34), Boksic (32), Stanic (30), Soldo (34), Jarni (33)...the coach wasn't brave enough to replace the bronze medal carriers, he wanted to buy fan sympathies with this first squad. Great and experienced international coach Mirko Jozic, but he had fear of Croatian audience, media, that's why he didn't wanted to remove these players, just so that he can say: "I had the best international players, not good enough". Errors at EURO 2004: rejuvenation, but with bad coach and with players who have never played together before. Strange combination of youth and experience. Three main sorrows of this EURO: 1. Six defensive players against England - fear, small football nation syndrome. http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuro/season...81/match=1059182/postmatch/lineups/index.html 2. Before this match, Croatia played against France, they played 2-2, French goal was not regular, hand of Trezeguet, but this is not important. Important is their "small football nation" syndrome. They thought, if they could play 2-2 with European Champions at EURO 2000, than we are good team. They were happy with 2-2 result. EURO 2016 showed that there are teams who have less or the same number of residents like Croatia and who played with heart: Northern Ireland, Ireland, Slovakia, Wales, etc. 3. They have underestimated Switzerland at EURO 2004, Croatian illness for the upcoming tournaments. Very bad coach Otto Baric. World Cup 2006 1. The opening match with Brazil who were the title holders at very strange World Cup 2002. Croatia lost 1-0 and again, media, players and the coach said: "If we could play with title holders and lose only 1-0, imagine what could we make against Japan and Australia". They made only 0-0 and 2-2 against them. Braver teams went further. And Brazil ended as pretty average team on that World Cup, but Croatian media, players were impressed with the name called Brazil, Selecao, World Champions... Of course, they underestimated Japan and Australia... Very bad coach Zlatko Kranjcar. EURO 2008 Birth of the winning mentality, but... Finally, Croatia started to respect their weaker opponents in the group: Austria and Poland and the syndrome of a "small football country" was removed in a victory against Germany. Croatia had 9 points. In the knock out stage, they started to underestimate Turkey, by saying how they only have Fatih Terim, that they don't have players in great clubs, that they can't come back always after they receive the goal. In the knock out stage, Croatia entered with safe mode again, they underestimated them, they have scored in 119th minute. Turks tied in 121 or 122nd minute. The winning mentality was crushed in the penalty shoot out. Probably the worse moment in Croatian football history. Croatia had great coach in Slaven Bilic (West Ham), with well balanced team players, who played in solid, yet not excellent clubs Milan (Dario Simic), Dortmund (Mladen Petric, Robert Kovac), Manchester City (Vedran Corluka), Ivan Rakitic (Schalke), Jerko Leko, Nikola Pokrivac (Monaco). World Cup Qualifications 2010 Croatia underestimated everyone, after nice games at EURO 2008 and removing England off the EURO 2008 in the qualifications for that competition. Croatia met England again in these qualifications. Of course, they said, that they will again both times against England, with easy matches against Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Andorra. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_FIFA_World_Cup_qualification_–_UEFA_Group_6 But Croatia made draws against Ukraine, with two heavy defeats in history against England. Fabio Capello is the main figure of those victories with naive Croatian approach. Also, some speculations were made that England gave the victory to Ukraine, 1-0. Deserved elimination of Croatia. EURO 2012 Winning mentality was born, but the group was very hard, Italy, Spain, Ireland and referee was bad against Spain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Euro_2012_Group_C World Cup 2014 Some old, weak players were invited: Stipe Pletikosa, through his entire career he was pretty weak goalkeeper, same as Danijel Pranjic, Ognjen Vukojevic, Nikica Jelavic, unknown Oliver Zelenika, Sammir, Again, small football nation syndrome was born in the opening match against Brazil, the referee helped to Brazil, so they said again: "Imagine, we lost with referees against us, we had a good game against Brazil, we will win easy against Cameroon and Mexico". But Mexico destroyed Croatia. Croatia had bad coach Igor Stimac. Strangely, "big football nations" becomes weak countries, where referee needs to help them so that they can win against "small football nation" Croatia. Very turbulent state of mind in Croatian conscience. Big, small, small turns big, big turns small. EURO 2016 The winning mentality was born, but against Portugal everything went into safe style, weak coach Ante Cacic without any important result in his biography, who kept some old, bad and players without good shape like Mario Mandzukic, Ivan Strinic. In all competitions, there were some players who were there because of their connections with the staff, nepotism with terrible coaches... Croatia had only four good coaches: Tomislav Ivkovic, Miroslav Blazevic, Mirko Jozic and Slaven Bilic. All others were weak. In these upcoming qualifications for the World Cup 2018, for the first time Croatian coach Ante Cacic said that he is not too optimistic against their opponents: Iceland, Ukraine, Turkey, Finland, Kosovo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_FIFA_World_Cup_qualification_–_UEFA_Group_I Croatia played in additional qualifications against Iceland recently and played only 0-0 away. They have underestimated them and they were focused on Gudjohnsen only. Even in this qualifications, coach will make mistakes, he will invite old players: Subasic (he will have 33 in Russia), Corluka (32), Modric (32), Mandzukic (32). Darijo Srna gave up from the team after this EURO. The coach will remove players like Strinic, Schildenfeld, because they were never popular among the fans. But these four from above will participate, some old invisible glory, great international clubs like Monaco, Real Madrid, Juventus. Just like at EURO 2016, they will talk how Croatian players play in Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus, Inter Milano, Monaco, etc. All those early eliminations are bonded with deeper issues of Croatian mentality, arrogance, they will always attract with nice style, but nothing major will ever appear if they don't change their approach and mentality, if they start to acknowledge that there are no weak teams, small countries, big countries. A lot of people in Croatia and media observes these teams: Portugal (through Baia, Couto, Figo, Rui Costa, Conceicao), France (Zidane, Desailly, Deschamps, Barthez, Henry, Thuram, Anelka), Italy (Nesta, Baresi, Cannavaro, Maldini, del Piero, Totti, etc.), England (Cole, Terry, Seaman, Adams, Campbell, Beckham, Scholes), Germany (Matthaus, Klinsmann, Kuntz, Bierhoff, Kahn, Lehmann, Helmer, Hassler, etc.), Netherlands (Davids, Seedorf, van der Sar, Overmars, Bergkamp, F. de Boer, Rijkaard, etc.). But they don's play anymore. Same thing is with the Croatian team, people observe Croatian team through the generation 1996, 1998...newer generations were always in the shadow of that generation and compared with them, that's why Croatia has newly composed terms and player names like: New Suker, New Boban, New Jarni, etc. Hard burden for every new player who arrives on those "sacred" positions and shoes. LB position is almost cursed, because Croatia doesn't have the New Jarni. So what, Brazil doesn't have Roberto Carlos, Italy doesn't have Paolo Maldini, Argentina doesn't have Juan Pablo Sorin, Germany won't have Phillip Lahm anymore, England doesn't have Ashley Cole. Majority of teams plays and tries to do the best, they try to use every positive aspect of the players and turn all negative characteristics into positive consequences for the team. Croatia could seek new, talented players, get even better than these ones, but they will always end in the dark chambers of the Group Stages at the World Cups, because they can't play against All American teams, some of them are underestimated, some of them are "big football nations". All Asian, African, Oceania teams are underestimated. European teams are divided between the "big football nations", underestimated teams, especially those from Eastern Europe, Balkan Peninsula countries. Upcoming Croatian qualifications will be interesting. Iceland, Ukraine and Turkey could be very complicated, it's hard to believe that Croatia can win in all six matches. Also, Kosovo could get several Swiss-Albanian players, maybe from some other diaspora countries. They will have fanatical audience. First team qualifies directly.
In many moments, I saw Luka Modric close to his defenders, Portugal pressed him hard in his own half. It's impossible to be creative if you always start as CB, CDM player. It's also impossible to win, if you have the left side completely blocked, Strinic, Perisic and it's impossible to win if you have old RB player like Dario Srna, who only expects fouls and goes on the ground too often. Marcelo Brozovic is good as CDM, RDM, but not as RAM, CAM..Attacker Mandzukic was not even present in the match.
Ronaldo's comment about small nations was a brain fart but no one has ever marked him down as a intellectual. Portugal and Croatia are small nations in terms of many things (population, GDP...). Greece won in Portugal while we were playing like the 'Big Nations'.
Portugal deserve to go through and I say this with absolutely no bias once we close down their two best players that's it Croatia didn't know what to do they had no attacking emphasis after that
I don't know Ronaldo but the less he talks and the more he plays the better. I respect Ronaldo as a player but have never like his petulant, arrogant, immature outbursts. Portugal did what they had to in order to win.
Instead of worrying about Portugal and what the players say and do.......... Why don't you worry about Romania's European campaign.......... opps I forgot
We should be all worried about the Mediterranean countries GDP. Portuguese fishermen can't buy new fishing boats because of the EU legislation, Spanish citizens need to go on the new elections, government collapsed, French society is divided, Italy has a lot of refugees, weaker GDP, new government comes every year, Croatian GDP indicates poverty, young people are leaving in "Big GDP Nations". Interesting, "Big GDP Nations" are usually "Weaker Football Nations". Croatia will have new elections, similar to Spain. Some other Medietarranean countries don't even have football joy, like Greece, Montenegro..."Bread and circuses".
There are many things that Croatian and Portuguese football share a lack of a winning mentality is one another is a failure to make their 'golden generation' actually win something.
France - Ireland now. Big football nation has arrived with sensible memories on Henry, Trezeguet, Zidane, Thuram, Platini as ex-UEFA chairman. Ireland will just burn out in their desire for victory and that hand of Henry.
Qualifications for the WC 1998 were bad for Portugal. The "Golden Generation" started to participate: Helder, Figo, Rui Costa, Joao Pinto, Couto, Conceicao. But Portugal underestimated Armenia, Northern Ireland, Ukraine. EURO 2000 - Portugal was excellent, at WC 2002, referees destroyed the dream against South Korea, Portugal was also great at EURO 2004, World Cup 2006, EURO 2012. At least Portugal has 2nd, 3rd, 4th...Croatia has only one 3rd place and with Yugoslavia two 4th places, three 5th places at World Cups and two 2nd positions at EURO's, one 4th position. As you can see, Croatia embraced Yugoslav legacy. Yugoslavia was also bad in winning mentality, divided as Yugoslav republics (Croats, Serbs, Slovenes), divided in religion (Croat Catholics, Orthodox Serbs)...and GDP started to collapse in 80's. It's sad to see how media glorifies Golden Generations who don't win anything. Croatia is terrible at World Cups, two Group Stages and in South Africa they weren't even present. This is all because Croats still remember the World Cup 1998 and they observe all players through that generation. Probably Portugal makes the same: New Costinha, New Rui Costa, New Figo...
Europe is in crisis and I fear that it is going to get a lot worse. I don't want to get into political details as this is not a political forum but things could get out of hand very quickly.
I agree. For example, if France losses against Ireland, old themes will start, about the players who are not French. EU is in crisis, EURO currency is not widely accepted. European football is observed through some old political alliance, old enemy history...