Football’s Coming Home made us want to reach final even more ‘In the final, the god of football was French’
AS ENGLAND LOOK TO AVENGE MOSCOW MISERY, CROATIA STAR IVAN RAKITIC ADMITS...
IVAN RAKITIC perfectly describes the moment when a player stands for his national anthem at the World Cup final. ‘You feel so proud,’ he says, ‘that if Superman came down, he wouldn’t be able to move you off the spot.’
It’s a moment that so nearly belonged to England. Gareth Southgate’s players were 45 minutes from the final at half-time at the Luzhniki Stadium when Rakitic’s Croatia came back to win.
They have come back in the Nations League too and they will top the group at England’s expense if they win at Wembley tomorrow.
Looking forward to the decider, Rakitic takes us inside the heads of these indomitable Croatian players. He also tells the story of how he promised his little girl a belated birthday celebration when he returned from the World Cup and it ended up involving a street party for half-a-million of his countrymen.
But first to Moscow, July 11, halftime in the semi-final: England 1 Croatia 0.
‘It was just a brilliant goal,’ he says of Kieran Trippier’s free-kick. ‘The game had turned in England’s favour but we had a lot of faith in ourselves. We knew we had to apply the pressure for a sustained period so that they started getting nervous.
‘The most important thing was not to let them play out comfortably. We knew that John Stones was their most important player in terms of playing out. After various years with Pep (Guardiola) he knew how to do that job very well.’
Stifling Stones was a plan that eventually worked. They had some good fortune, too.
‘With a little bit of luck we got the second goal with a headed clearance that falls right to Mario Mandzukic. Then there is this feeling of
no pasa nada (no problem).’ He is reliving all this in Spanish, one of five languages he speaks fluently.
He grew up in Switzerland after his family moved there to escape the Balkans conflict and he has settled in Spain with his Spanish wife and children. He says a big part of him feels Swiss, and Spanish, but adds: ‘I am Croatian right down to the last hair on my head.’
No problem with those off-the-scale celebrations at the end of the England game then?
‘It was just a moment of complete madness for us. I don’t know which player it was who said that we lacked respect because we did not shake hands, but you have to understand this is a moment when we have got Croatia into a World Cup final. I don’t know how many inhabitants London has — 8 million or so — that’s almost double Croatia’s population.
‘So it’s not that we wanted to show any disrespect to England but it is just in that moment all Croatians wanted to embrace all other Croatians!’
Respect was something on Luka Modric’s mind after the game. He claimed English journalists and TV pundits had lacked humility when talking about Croatia.
When Rakitic is asked if Croatia were underestimated, he mentions a certain song that was getting plenty of air-time.
‘Well, “Football’s Coming Home” we were aware of that,’ he says with a grin. ‘I know it’s just a positive atmosphere that you were creating around the team and it wasn’t desired to offend the opponent but we saw it and we also thought: “Yeah, but you have to play against us”. I understand that a country, well the country in terms of football, England, had a lot of desire to win the tournament and they came very close.’
England’s defeat in the semi-final left some wondering if the achievement in Russia had been nothing more than a lucky run of games.
‘If you want to find something negative then you will,’ says Rakitic. ‘But England dug out a path for themselves, no one gifted them anything.
‘My respect for them is enormous and it is not a coincidence that they have since beaten Spain in Spain. It was one of the most competitive World Cups. Certainly nobody had us down as finalists.’
Nobody, except maybe Rakitic himself. ‘When I said goodbye to my wife I did say I would be back on the 15th (day of the final),’ he says. ‘She told me that the 11th was my daughter’s birthday and that I had better explain to her why I was not going to be at her party.’
Raktic called his little girl immediately after beating England. ‘I said to her: “Don’t worry when the tournament is over, we will have a big party”.’ In the end there were two — one with presents for her and the other when 500,000 took to the streets to welcome the team home.
That homecoming could not have been more impressive had they won it. The reason they didn’t brings us to video assistant referees.
‘Don’t talk to me about VAR because I have dreamed of it a thousand nights,’ says Rakitic, who misses the trip to Wembley tomorrow with a muscle strain suffered in Thursday’s dramatic 3-2 win against Spain. ‘In that final the god of football was French. The first goal comes from a free-kick that is not a foul and VAR could then intervene because Pogba is offside. And you could say that the VAR after the penalty, if it does not give it then there would not have been many complaints.’
It’s left him very anti-VAR. ‘You score a goal and you have to stop to see if the referee is going to put his finger to his ear or draw the imaginary TV screen,’ he says.
There will be no VAR tomorrow. Neither will there be a penalty shoot-out. Twice in Russia Rakitic scored the decisive spot-kick with a cool that belied the massive pressure he was under.
Of the long walk to the spot he says: ‘I tried not to think about anything more than what I was talking to my wife about during the day or the FaceTime call I had with my daughters.’
When he finally got home to his family he says the post-tournament comedown was tough. ‘Football gives you another opportunity to go again every three or four days but with a World Cup it’s different. I don’t know if I am going to reach the next one.’
He puffs out his cheeks and sighs: ‘The first few days back at home I was completely exhausted inside and out.’
The Nations League was at first tough on Croatia, too. There were retirements and injuries and they had to face England in an empty stadium because of racist behaviour by their fans during Euro 2016 qualifying.
‘It’s a game that all the English will have forgotten immediately,’ he says. ‘No one will ever talk about it and yet it could been a huge party. Football without supporters is nothing.’
There will be a big party at Wembley if England win, but Croatia have been the spoilers before.
If they are to repeat the trick, it will be without Rakitic.