‘England will have TO find A WAY TO contain Modric’
ST PETERSBURG: If there was any doubt as to how much the World Cup semi-final against England means to Croatia, then listen to Slaven Bilic. “We have waited 20 years for this,” the former defender and former Croatia coach, says. “To be honest, and you don’t even have to say this, but both teams will be prepared to give everything. Absolutely everything. It will be a tough game, a nervous game and both teams have suffered. For Croatia there have been four, five tournaments in which they have cried, they have suffered but they have matured and had all the range of emotions and been brave to finally get to the position where they are ready for everything.”
Bilic was in the Croatia team that reached the World Cup semi-finals in in 1998, losing to the hosts and eventual champions, France, before winning the third-placed play-off in what was their first involvement in the tournament.
The 49-year-old then, of course, successfully coached his country for six years from 2006 — and famously finished ahead of England to qualify for Euro 2008 to consign Steve Mcclaren to being the “Wally with the Brolly” — and is now working as an ITV pundit and will be covering the game in Moscow. “Although you are a bigger nation you cannot say it is a bigger achievement for us than it is for you because 20 years ago we were in the semi-finals also,” Bilic says. “We were at least as successful as you. I think to be fair we have still not seen the best of Croatia or the best of England at this World Cup especially in the last two games. “Yes, we saw the best of Croatia against Argentina but in the last couple of games we showed the other side that we didn’t have before with this generation — we never used to win those kind of rough games, those scrappy games. We always had to be better than the opponent and play nice football to beat them. Now we have shown twice (against Denmark and Russia) in seven days that we can win those other kind of matches and especially to do so on penalties. And England did that as well against Colombia so that also gives you a special kind of confidence and belief.”