For those expecting a cakewalk vs Cameroon I would only make one note: Cameroon has the most Champions League players of all African teams and is second to Brasil in this group in this regard: Brasil 13 players (Alves, Thiago Silva, Luis, Fernandinho, Marcelo, Hulk, Neymar, Oscar, Dante, Maxwell, Ramires, Willian, Bernard) Cameroon 5 players (Eto'o, Nounkeu, Song, Chedjou, Matip) Croatia 3 players (Modric, Srna, Eduardo) Mexico 3 players (Herrera, Guardado, Hernandez) Naturally this doesn't mean anything, but it just shows that Cameroon does have pretty good players.
Since when Mandzukic isn't a champions league player? he is even a winner 2013 and a semi finalist in the competition. anyway it's irrelevant by my opinion...most of players in croatian team played champions league at a point. there were 2 croatians in semi finals of this champions league...when there wasn't any player from cameroon or mexico at this level of competition. we can go the way we want to in this topic... even kovacic is the second or third youngest scorer in champions league history. i'd rather rely on the ones that got an european cup in their palmares and mainly champions league... how many champions league winners in brazil, cameroon, croatia and mexico? let's have fun. brazil is far above and croatia second. the 2 croatians winning their champions leagues these 2 last seasons when the only player in cameroon that won it did it for the last time in 2010.
Sorry. Missed out Mandzukic. Still Cameroon has more You started but hell: Within its squad Cameroon also has more Champions League wins than Croatia: Cameroon 3 vs Croatia 2 So: Brasil is far above, Cameroon second, Croatia third (although I didn't check Mexico, they may have 2 as well through dos Santos and Chicarito)... Olinga is the youngest scorer in La Liga history And so on and so on... I didn't say Cameroon is better, I'm just saying that treating them like they are some sort of outlier in the group is asking for punishment.
only one player in Cameroon won the 3 champions league and did it for the last time 4 years ago... when there are 2 european champions in croatian squad, 1 who is european champion as we're talking now, and the other only one year ago. chicharito never won it..;and dos santos if he did was never a starter in barcelona.
Rafael Marquez x2 is the only champions league winner in our squad and only one ever if Im not mistaken.
3 still trumps 2. And Chelsea made the semis with Eto'o. I never said you don't have higher profile players in Rakitic and Modric. Just that Cameroon are no pushovers.
2 players still trumps 1...we can see it the way we want. Cameroon and Mexico are both threats to Croatia...and Mexico even with less champions league players might be a bigger threat to Cameroon than Croatia is...amount of players in champions league is irrelevant. a player such as Sougou played champions league with Cluj and in ligue 1 everybody in france makes fun of him...
mocinic injured.. strinic, pranjic, mocinic, badelj, kranjcar, ilicevic... 6 players from the initial list are injured, 4 withdraw... badelj will come back to the squad though not at 100% yet.