CROATIA LAST
Trippier’s strike had England dreaming, but clinical Croats MARTIN SAMUEL
ONE lapse. That is all it takes in this rarest of atmospheres. Kieran Trippier lost his header to Ivan Perisic, Mario Mandzukic ran off John Stones, and England were out of the World Cup.
It took Croatia 109 minutes of football to take the lead against England, but they edged it in the end. They were the better team in the second half, they hit the post, Jordan Pickford made one magnificent save.
But let’s get one thing straight. England were not lucky to be here. They were not fortunate beneficiaries of a soft draw, or undeserving contenders for the 2018 World Cup. They were, in many ways, the best team here. Not in football terms, or technical terms. No one is claiming they are a match for France, or even Croatia, the finalists. But as a team, a band of brothers, a group of players amounting to more than the sum of their parts, England were outstanding.
England did as well as could possibly be expected given their youth, inexperience and the absence of a playmaker in the class of Luka Modric. Gareth Southgate, the manager, has done an exceptional job and the team should be his to mould for another four years at least.
Anyone who thinks England just got lucky doesn’t know football. This game was the proof of it. They battled Croatia to a standstill, both teams exhausted, all energy and emotion spent. They could not have given more, either of them, and that a single goal separated them is fitting. Better that than to lose on penalties and see that old hoodoo return.
Credit Croatia, too. This was a spirited performance after two knockout games that have reached penalties. When England took the lead after five minutes, and dominated the opening 30, it would have been easy to be overwhelmed. Instead, they found a way back into the game through Modric and man-of-the-match Perisic, outstanding technical talents who point the way forward for Southgate and his men.
But they know that, having come so close. They know there is a missing link, and the next step is finding it. Easier said than done.
Croatia were always going to be the strongest test England had faced in this competition to here, and so it proved.
If England had the upper hand for the bulk of the first half, the second belonged to Croatia. They controlled the ball in midfield through Modric, with Perisic quite brilliant coming in from the left. England looked ragged, leggy, edgy and panicked.
In a seven-minute spell, Croatia took them apart, physically and technically. Kyle Walker was struck a devastating blow in the crotch from a shot by Perisic, collapsed, and when the ball did not go out of play, got up to clear the recycled cross. Then he fell again.
Three minutes later, Sime Vrsaljko hit a superb deep cross from the right and Perisic drifted off Trippier and attacked the ball. Walker went for a diving headed clearance but Perisic nipped in first and met it with a volleyed flick past Pickford. A high boot? Possibly, but Walker was stooping, so it was a judgment call. Referee Cuneyt Cakir went with the scorer. To be fair, England would have moaned like hell had he disallowed one of theirs like that.
The pressure was now unrelenting and yet there were moments when England’s strengths surfaced once more.
Substitute Marcus Rashford won a free-kick which Trippier curled in only for Harry Kane to steer a free header wide. The fifth minute