Mixing It Against Poland

And that’s probably an understatement. As things stand (that’s according to the latest reports coming in from our camp), we will introduce no less than 8 new players against Poland on Monday.

There’s no doubt these stand-in players are quality and will be 100% motivated to do well in this match, but the fact there’s as many as 8 of them signals that we have little or no ambition to get a result on this particular occasion. Fair play? What’s that again? Again, as we’ve theoretically sealed the 1st place, there’s absolutely no need to risk second yellows (Srna, Modric, Kovac, Simunic) or of course further challenge lady luck with potential injuries to these players. This “day off” will do a world of good to our players by helping them to recuperate fitness amid this match-packed and exhausting tournament.

Starting lineup should therefore look something like this: Pletikosa – Šimić, Vejić, Knežević, Pranjić – J. Leko, Vukojević, Pokrivač, Rakitić – Petrić, Klasnić. This is of course still a subject of discussion as there’s almost 48 hours till the match kicks off.

One thing that’s interesting here, is that we had almost the exact situation back on EURO 1996 in England. We had won our first 2 matches and then fielded a reserve squad in our last match, which we lost by a margin of 3 goals (0:3).

Despite qualifying, not much sympathy was shown to our coach (Miroslav “Ciro” Blazevic, pictured) as a lot of criticism was directed at him for taking this approach. But more importantly, and that’s the difference between then and today, by “forfeiting” our last match we gave away the group’s top spot and qualified only as runners up. This time around, there’s absolutely nothing to lose or gain except perhaps the affection of our group rivals Germany and Austria.

But fair play aside, I’m sure everyone would agree that in these kind of conditions, it’s every man, or rather every nation for itself.

And as always, you can follow the game’s live blog right here.