Dalic proud as draw enough for Croatia qualify for 2018 World Cup
O’Neill and Northern Ireland left frustrated in Switzerland
Croatia manager Zlatko Dalic heaped praise on his players after they saw off Greece with the minimum of fuss in their play-off tie to seal a place at the 2018 World Cup.
The impressive Croatians held Greece to a 0-0 draw at the Georgios Karaiskakis stadium in Sunday’s second leg in Athens to complete a 4-1 aggregate victory – making it the fifth time they have qualified for the global showpiece since gaining independence in 1991.
“Congratulations to my players, it was a great game tonight, full of tension, and we’ve achieved what we had set out to do and are going to Russia,” a delighted Dalic said. “We played a truly awesome game in Zagreb in the first leg, tonight here it was much harder.
“But it was never important for me who would be our opponents in this play-off, because I was convinced that we would win whoever we played against.”
Having done the hard work four days ago by winning 4-1 in Zagreb, Dalic’s team finished the job comfortably against the much-improved Greeks who were full of attacking intent and tenacious tackling but lacked creativity up forward.
For all the home side’s possession and hard work, Croatia came closest to scoring with Ivan Perisic hitting the post in the first half.
Dalic said his team oozed quality and that he had benefited from the work of predecessor Ante Cacic, who was sacked last month after a run of poor results.
“I did not have to do much. I mostly talked to my players,” he said. “This qualification is also as much down to the previous coach and comes as a result of his work.
“We are a very good team and failure to qualify for the World Cup was not an option.”
Greece manager Michael Skibbe pledged to continue in his role.
Despite the deflation of missing out on Russia, their improvement over the qualification campaign gave the German hope.
“This is a sad day for us and of course it’s difficult, because we have missed out on the World Cup, but I will stay on here,” Skibbe said. “I’m very happy with the team’s progress over the past 14 months.
“We have played really well overall in 12 matches, unfortunately we had a real below-par performance in Zagreb and we have paid dearly for that.”
Also through to the finals are Switzerland, who played out a goalless draw with Northern Ireland to win their play-off 1-0 on aggregate.
The Swiss were pushed hard by Michael O’Neill’s side and the Swiss were relieved to navigate their way through. Everyone said it was almost done, but against teams like that it’s a fight. I’m very excited we’ve achieved our goal,” goalkeeper Yann Sommer told television channel RTS.
“It’s unfortunate that we were not more efficient because it would have been easier.”
Stoke City winger Xherdan Shaqiri added: “It was a difficult match. It was very difficult to play with the pitch and our opponents.
“I’m very proud that we have managed to qualify for the whole country.”
The play-off loss ends the Northern Irish hopes of playing at a World Cup for the first time since 1986 and has led to speculation that O’Neill will be moving on from coaching the side.
Brightoin and Hove Albion midfielder Oliver Norwood, who is on loan at Championship side Fulham, said he and his teammates were keen for O’Neill to stay in charge.
“Obviously, we all want Michael to stay,” he said. “We hope that our performance on Sunday night [showed we] would want him to remain in charge.
“The message is loud and clear from the players and fans that we would like Michael to stay as we can achieve great things with this squad.
“We have some good young players coming through and we have players with a lot of experience as well.”
O’Neill remains bitter over the penalty decision in the first leg that gave Switzerland victory, and he said: “Ultimately we’ve gone out to a poor decision.”