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Qatar Signals Trouble

October 9th, 2009 | By: Mario | 17 Comments »

Well it couldn’t have gone more wrong last night, could it? Well actually it could, we could’ve lost the game, but I’m sure most of us would sign defeat rather then have another three players shot down with injuries. But before I get to that, let’s recap on what was happening on pitch at Kantrida last night.

Croatia started brightly, putting one past Qatar in 7th (Corluka’s header) and 11th minute (Klasnic) of the match. And after such a strong start, we expectedly slowed down a notch, letting the visitors display some plausible spells of passing and pressure. Opportunities were lacking on both sides of the pitch (Olic hitting the crossbar being worthy of mention), until a few minutes before halftime the visitors pulled one back, with Majid’s shot beating Runje after taking a deflection from Robert Kovac. Second half looked like more of the same, Croatia occasionally threatening but lacking the motivation to materialize it into something more then a 2:1 scoreline.

But if we lacked motive, the visitors had it in abundance. Soria scored in 69th minute to even the score and put things back to the beginning. And as the quality ridden half (on our behalf of course) was in its dying minutes, debutant Jelavic scored to (perhaps) spare some blushes ahead of Wednesday’s qualifier against Kazakhstan. We won, hurray and yippie ya yee. And now the grumbling part (my specialty these days). Through the period of last few months, to say that we’ve been plagued with injuries would be an understatement. And as things stand, with Eduardo, Modric, Simunic and Petric already out of the Kazakhstan game, looks like we’ve lost the trio of Kranjcar (apparently the most serious injury among the three), Pranjic and Mandzukic as well.

That’s an awful large amount of players to lose in such a short period of time. And we’ve never been a side known for their squad depth, have we? Either way, the game with Kazakhstan already looks like a nerve wrecking one. But before all those nerves go to waste, there’s still that tiny matter of life and death regarding our qualifying chances, taking shape in tomorrow’s match between Ukraine and England. The latter will, tomorrow and (probably) never again, have an extra 4.5 million fans at their side. Capello we’re watching you.

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Comments | Add your comment

By ivan | October 9th, 2009 at 3:21 pm

I can’t believe the injury problems we are having. I hope we have enough depth to pull out a win on Wednesday.

By An England Fan | October 10th, 2009 at 4:52 pm

As an England fan, I’m *really* happy we lost to Ukraine. As are all England fans. Your team’s behaviour at Wembley when you knocked us out of the Euros was an absolute disgrace – celebrating as if you had won the World Cup. Enjoy the next world cup on your TV sets. Goodbye and good riddance.

By Rich | October 10th, 2009 at 5:06 pm

A little harsh England Fan. Although, I must agree…this qualification has karma written all over it. Croatia put in a lot of effort, but nobody would argue that Ukraine have not been the second best team in group 6. Let’s not forget how they put the fear of God in all England fans back in June.

By Mario | October 10th, 2009 at 5:44 pm

@ An England Fan:
There’s one thing you left out of the equation. Thing called fair play. All we did on that night was give our best, and you couldn’t do that tonight. And for that, Croatia doesn’t envy you.

@ Rich:
We didn’t deserve to go through, end of. Simply the fact that you have to depend on someone says you ain’t cut out for it. In a strange way I’m not sad England lost tonight. Cause otherwise I’d have a legitimate reason to like them.

By Virgil | October 10th, 2009 at 5:58 pm

I agree with An England Fan here. “We are simply the better team” by Slaven Bilic just made him look like an even bigger douche today.

Posted from United States

By ivan | October 10th, 2009 at 10:56 pm

I hope England lose every game during the world cup. Now I see why the Scotish cheer for every team playing England.

Goodbye Slaven Bilic, its time for you to move on. Hes way too close to the players. I think Bilic will be a fine manager whereever he ends up but our national team needs someone who is more strict with the players. I would love to see us get a non croat to coach the team. A Sven Goran Ericson or someone like that. It wont happen but one could hope.

By ivan | October 10th, 2009 at 10:57 pm

P.S.. Whens the draw for Euro 2012 lol

By Kevin | October 11th, 2009 at 6:28 pm

I don’t want Sven Goran Erickson anywhere near any of the teams I support. I don’t think he is good at all. Look how Mexico is fairing since he left. I still can’t come to terms with Croatia not being in the WC. I guess we didn’t really deserve it if we couldn’t even get second in that group, but the fact that a team like Switzerland is getting through with automatic qualification hurts.

Posted from United States

By ivan | October 13th, 2009 at 12:41 am

Kevin… Yeah it sucks we will miss the WC. We didn’t do enough to qualify and its our own fault. We tied Ukraine twice and looking back at that should have told us that something was wrong with the team. Its a shame considering the talent we have. Corluka, Modric, Kranjcar, Eduardo, Petric, Srna and Olic can start on any team in the world yet we only got 2 points against Ukraine in 2 games and we were lucky not to lose to Belarus at home. We got embaressed by England twice. Something is wrong.

Today Bilic sent Simunic and Krizanac home for unknown reasons. He also had to dicipline Jelavic and Sharbini. Srna is blaming England when he should be blaming himself and his teamates. Somewhere over the past 18 months Bilic lost controll of the team and for him to be a top manager he has to be the boss and not a buddy to the players.

I used Sven as an example but my point was that we need an outsider to manage this team, someone who wouldnt feel pressured by the media to pick the team he thinks will give us the best chance to reach our potential. Four years ago Bilic was that guy, he brought in Eduardo and Corluka from the under 21 team because they deserved the call up (everyone thought he was nuts). Over the last 2 years our team has gotten a bit stale, no one is afraid of losing their spot, the lack of competition for starting rolls makes the players lazy. If Mandzukic or Kalinic are scoring goals for their domestic teams then they deserve a shot at starting on our national team. I might be babbling but I am very disapointed with this team, not because they dont have talent but because they do.

By Kruno | October 13th, 2009 at 10:54 am

@An England Fan

Take a hard long look in the mirror before you judge the conduct of others.

Your behaviour here only serves to confirm what the world already thinks about the English.

The English players and fans have a long and well documented history of arrogance, violence, and underachievement.

We didn’t deserve to go to the WC and we won’t. Everyone gets what they deserve … and England will be getting theirs long before the final match is played next summer.

By Kevin | October 13th, 2009 at 10:55 pm

Yea I definately see what you are getting at in rgards to the managerial position, Ivan. I just have a soft spot for Bilic as manager, because he manages his own country and he seems like a down to earth fellow. Maybe a manager with a more outside, objective view is what we need. Better yet, my blue Kranjcar Croatia jersey just came in the mail. Perfect timing, eh

Good points as well, Kruno.

Posted from United States

By Sol | October 14th, 2009 at 4:09 pm

“but the fact that a team like Switzerland is getting through with automatic qualification hurts”

Well said Kevin, I feel the exact same way. It’s the way the spots are divided I guess. I’m sure Sweden or Croatia could easily beat Switzerland, Greece, Slovakia, Slovenia or any of the other (nearly qualified) nations in the other regions like Costa Rica, Japan, S. Korea, Algeria, to name a few.

It’s just the way things are and I guess it’s more fun to see more countries outside of Europe at the WC.

Posted from Netherlands

By American Fan for Croatia | October 15th, 2009 at 8:37 am

Croatia are a good team. Even those who don’t support Croatia will agree. Many key players were missing off and on during their qualifying campaign. Perhaps a different, defensive, and more drastic set-up could have been fielded against a Cappello-led selection (or at least the 2nd time around); as McClaren’s squad, although containing many of the same faces were not led by a proven winner in Capello. Those two matches proved to be pivotal. At full strength, Croatia can compete with anyone. Their selection plays in any and all of the big European leagues. They will be back!

By Cecilia (Peruvian Fan of the HNS) | October 15th, 2009 at 2:16 pm

I’m furious. I’m utterly stunned, I feel exactly what I felt like when Croatia lost to Turkey in the Euro 2008. I can’t believe such a great team, with amazing and talented players, and with a very close to the brazilian ‘jogo bonito’ scheme will not be going to the biggest display of skillful football. Then again, ‘World Championships’ of any kind aren’t always accurate or fair. It’s only an indicator, but it doesn’t mean all that much (objectively i mean). It’s always a matter of chance, whether we have all the skills in the world, or not. I agree with many of the commenters when they say Croatia is a far better team than many of the teams that qualified already. I don’t think Slaven Bilic’s methods are wrong, matter of fact, many countries would love him as a coach (hell, I have that much faith in that man that I believe he could make the shittiest team in South America, PERU that is, qualify for Brazil 2014). I think Croatia’s mistake was relying on their renewed confidence as a consequence of their performance in the Euro 2008, and they fell behind as to pushing the envelope and fighting for every point. Belarus should have been an ass-kicking, and Ukraine could have been a tie, maybe even one of the two games against England could have been a tie. Arrogance is overrated, like many would say ‘talk the talk and walk the walk if you can back it up’. I know Croatia CAN back it up, they just talked a little too much. Slaven’s remark wasn’t half as bad as any of the press conference statements Diego Maradona has all of us latin americans so used to hearing.
I have always been of the idea that it’s unrealistic to blame one single person for the series of mishaps of any organization. I have always criticized that in peruvian football, and i’m sad to see now that it’s basically a standard reaction.
In my eyes, Croatia is as good as they have always been, qualified or not. One Luka Modric, One Darijo Srna or One Ivica Olic make up for 11 good for nothing peruvians.

By Mike | October 15th, 2009 at 11:52 pm

Croatia will be back. This one will sting for a while, but I think the Croatian National set-up will be better because of this stumble.

As an Italian Canadian with many Croat friends, I will never miss a chance to give them a dig. But all the same, I would have preferred to see them in the Finals. Like my one buddy (and many of you) said, the England-Ukraine result is the final dish of revenge served by England.

Let the English puff their collective chests out right now. And let them think they are actually going to win this World Cup next summer. You know and I know, that they are going no further than the semi-final

Posted from Canada

By Mario | October 16th, 2009 at 7:31 am

Wow, thanks all for joining in, some real quality responses from you guys (and gals of course). Glad to see you holding heads high while keeping feet on the ground as to who’s responsible for us not making it. Thanks for that.

By Jules | November 10th, 2009 at 5:52 pm

..so, deep into injury time, 1-0 down and Wayne Rooney is taking a throw in – like how is HE going to score if he himself is taking the throw in??? Or is that the point!!! I think it would be karma if Ukraine knocked England out of the WC!!..