I think too that England has made a mistake on that goal because they were not 4 but 5.

Good points Joey, pretty much what ive been saying all day. The England team worked hard and they knew what they had to do from very early on in the game which meant the pace of the game was very quick. Croatia's technical ability and composure on the ball were just masterful. Also they just seemed to deal with everything England threw at them, apart from the move for Crouch's goal. I'm sure there's going to be interest from the premiership clubs for few of the Croat players after last nights performance, especially Modric who had an exellent game in midfield.

It's just unfortunate that I've supported Croatia for about 12 years, and they've contributed to knocking England out.
Although the Russia match was where you need to look, the rival for 2nd. Big points dropped.

So it's from the begining.I suppose you were impressed with Croats in euro 1996 when they've lost to germany in quarterfinals in Eng, and no one wanted to see them in the semis (including a referee who gave a penalty to germans, croats got a red card at the begining of the second half,levelled the score 1-1,and then germans scored after fouling Jarni so obviously,but yet with 10 men they almost managed to equalise)

Good point Johaldo, I remember a topic a while back about English players technique where we went into depth on the whole issue.

England were beaten by a better team last night, simple as that. Like Bilic said after the game, the media need to wake up and stop talking about tactics and systems. They were technically inferior to Croatia last night in every position. McLaren should have done better but realistically if the players were as good as people say then they would play well regardless, especially against teams like Macedonia.

Its the whole system in English Football thats the problem, the media always hype up expectation. Even now they still consider England as one of the top teams and expect them to win every competition. Fair enough they should be challenging with the history they have but right now the team just isnt good enough.

Theyre not in the same league as Argentina, Brazil, Italy, France or even Croatia in terms of technique. They cant keep the ball and play long spectacular passes instead of just playing simple passes and keeping possession like the top teams. Its nothing to do with tactics, its just the way football is played in England. People like Lampard and Gerrard are great at spectacular long balls but compare them to Croatia's midfield last night who always played the simple pass and were comfortable with the ball at their feet.

In the Premiership, focus is on pace and physicality so players generally dont have enough time on the ball to build up good technique, instead theyre forced into a hurried pass. Players like Gerrard and Lampard thrive in the that sort of style but once they have more time on the ball in International football, they dont know how to do the basics right and resort to long passes again which the Croats dealt with comfortably.

3-2 was a flattering result for England in the end, the penalty was a joke of a decision and Croatia had plenty more chances to score. If you want international success then the whole grass roots system needs to be overhauled and more emphasis placed on technique and the players mentality

[quote="Trouquel"]

Hey, I'm sure you could express your point in more correct way. It's clear to most russian fans that Croatia has just dragged Russia into the last car of the departing EURO 2008 train. The last two games of Russia... let's just don't talk about them now, ok?

England have now an excellent opportunity to learn the lesson, to think and analyze, and to finally improve the team's performance. Do Russia have such a valuable opportunity? It depends on whether Russians are just proud and satisfied, enjoy (?) pointing England to it's faults OR realizes that it jumped into EURO 2008 only by chance, thanks to Croatia, barely winning Andorra from the very bottom of the Group, that it's play is very poor and clearly below the level required to perform successfully at EURO 2008, that the team's defence has many major breaches etc. (I do remember Russia's home win over England, but that is simply not enough.)

Edited- English please - Conner99 quote]
You have ridiculously answered! And if there would pass England it Israel means would extend for ears???
As Englishmen - speak the account on a board
Too self-confident combined team at you, and in particular its trainer (already was{former}, õà-õà).
Give, improve the game, only outside of Euro! And we shall do it on a course of preparation for the championship... The Combined team of Russia has drawn 2 times with Croatia and 1 time has beaten England. And England? 2 defeats from Croatia and 1 defeat from Russia! So who is more worthy?
Us your problems, at us do not excite a holiday!
Edited - English please -Conner99

Possibly from the qualification highlights from that too. But yeah, that and then the France match.
2 times that should have been wins for Croatia. Unlucky in some respects.

The 1st team was great he put out last night.

As for in future, who can replace Robert Kovac at the back? (if not best right back in the world - Corluka)

Petric, Eduardo, Olic (and Klasnic) upfront is an excellent attack.
Pranjic and Rakitic can fill in for midfielders, just that central defence....

Tez/Con: Yeah it's a sad but very true fact about England's lack of technically gifted players.

I reckon the coaching is to blame, right from the 10 year old kids who are taught to clear the ball away from their goal i.e. be direct as possible - play the percentage game. When they are taught this way, the requirement for good technique goes out of the window.

How many times do you see England knock the ball about with one touch passing? You watch a repeat of yesterday's game. Nearly every touch by an England player required a first touch to control the ball. And when they did pass it, it was not ideal for the receiver so they had to take a touch to control it.

Watch Arsenal and then read these comments from Dave Kitson, who saw close up the quality of their passing game:



That is the key thing about pass and move football. Because the guy receiving the ball already has his mind made up for him by the delivery, this injects speed in the move and hence makes it harder to defend. One of the reasons why Lampard and Gerrard are highly rated is because they're quite adept at "launching grenades" to a big Man Up front, be it Drogba, Heskey or Crouch. But the ability to dictate the game from the midfield, by passing and moving quickly is beyond their technical capabilities.

They couldn't play the Arsenal way. Very few English players can - just ask Wenger.

Yeah, plus both Croatia & Arsenal seemingly have good managers that can get the right coheision with the combination of players that are good technically and get them playing well as a unit. That's one of the reasons we need a foreigner as England manager. English managers are tactically inept, when was the last time a English premiership manager won a trophy? Correct me if i'm wrong but I think it was Steve McClaren himself winning the Carling cup back in 2004. So if an English manager can't win anything domestically how well can we expect him to do in international football?

Well,you've got the point there,it's going to be difficult to replace not only Robert Kovac,but his brother aswell Niko Kovac,the Kovac brothers have been outstanding and led the defence for many years now,as for their successors...maybe Vranješ (Werder) for the defensive midfielder and Tudor(ex Juventus,now Hajduk Split) as the last man,Tudor had almost recovered from his injury that kept him off the team for quite long,we're missing Klasniæ also but luckilly in the attack there's enough quality.
The defence is going to be a problem you re right, since there is only one young player appart from Æorluka who might become a class player and that's rather unknown Shildenfeld,he's young and he's got quality,we'll see..Simunic and Simic are also old.. there is Babic though,but he's more a full back or a midfielder
I'm sure Bilic will find adequate replacements as he did with the whole team so far:))

[quote="Johaldo8"]Tez/Con: Yeah it's a sad but very true fact about England's lack of technically gifted players.

thats rubbish, the England players have the ability. they just cant get a manager in there that can put it all together. are you telling me beckham, gerrard, lampard, owen, hargreves, j cole, terry, ferdinand, Rooney, dont have ability?

lets be honest these players would get into most top teams in the world, apart from beckham, so to say they dont have technical ability is just rubbish.

Yes. They played safe in the second half and didn't allow any good opportunities for Andorra. But it seemed like Russia sacrificed the offense in favor of more solid defense... Against Andorra! Do you see?

But true professionals can play like there's no tomorrow against any team, under any circumstances, no matter what does the match mean for the tournament. No doubt Russia achieved enormously important home victory against England. And I want Russia to play next summer like that 2nd half against England, not like in Tel-Aviv, nor in Andorra.

Exactly. England, unlike Russia, have lost to Croatia earlier, that's why they had to rely on Israel, we know.



Your english in the last sentence is too poor to understand even for me, russian.

First, I'm proud to see Russia qualified! Really! Second, let's make it clear: I was born in Russia, and I'm sitting at the very center of Russia now.

Well, I admit I was somewhat unfair in my previous post.

Russia performed well against Croatia both at home and away, didn't allow a goal in both.
Russia defeated England.
I do remember these crucial achievements.

But if we want Russia to reach play-off stage of Euro 2008, to make stunning victories, to be able to stop Greece, Italy or Germany, we need to pay attention to the current drawbacks: the play when Russia lost 0:3 to England, lost 1:2 to Israel, the play in Andorra. Can you say our players did their best and gave everything in those matches? We need to greatly improve tactics, to fix defense, to learn many things from some group winners.

I hope Russia will do this huge work well to get a real chance of winning Euro 2008!

Please use English - Cyrilic alphabet doesn't show here anyway - Twmcat

What I really hated about this match was the arrogance of the BBC staff in dismissing Croatia. Its like they though it was a walk over for England. Maybe it reflected the players and the countries attitude towards the England team.

I thought England would not qualify from the start, but kept optimistic. Only to be let down again.
Very sad times, but things cannot get any worse.

I think Croatia will now finally get the respect they deserve. It was part of that English attitude which made the Croats play that football, to show England and the world that they can no longer be classed as dark horses, or an inferior team.

I might be an England fan, but we got everything we deserved.

Nothing wrong with the England team ability, its the attitude.

I'm not sure about that mate, would be more inclined to say it was the players who got complaicent and presumed they were automatically through.
I thought we were over relaxed, too confident even, after Israel got that amazing result v Russia.
I doubt very much the BBC's warblings had any bearing on what the players thought - I think thats just a popular thing to say, and too people just jump on & agree.
I doubt the England players would give much of a toss to what Motson, Wrighty, Shearer & Co had to say.

I dont think so either. I was getting at the point that the BBC staff had bad attitudes, which is the same as the England players. Not that the players were taking note of what the pundits say.
Arrogance with the pundits: for sure. England players: possibly. Whatever it was with them, it wasnt a good attitude they showed in playing.

Joe Cole, one of my favourite players, needs a slap.

He said to Ben Haim that he would buy him a holiday somewhere. Where does he buy it? Essex!
No offence to people from Essex..but youre a rich guy, a team mate helped you out, and he just basically laughed in his face, by offering a holiday to ESSEX!

Talking about technique I see people using Arsenal as an example. But if we look at Manchester United, we have a core of English player and they can and do play one touch passing, the likes of Rooney, Carrick, Scholes, Hargreaves, Rio, Neville all can do play once touch pass and move football so to say that we don’t have that in this country is gross misrepresentation.
The if you at the likes of Barry, Young, Angoblohor, Owen (when fit) they all once again can and do play pass and move.

The pass for our second goal was a first time cross by becks.

All the about not have technically gifted players is a load of cobblers in my opinion, the problem lies with managers picking player on reputation and not the system. It’s trying to chance the mentality of the player from being attacking to defensive. I've said it before and ill say it again we as Team England we have never been able and probably will never be able to sit on a lead or play out for a draw our footballing culture is to attack and score in high tempo match.

Trying to change it to a passive Italian defensive mentality like Sven tired and Mac tried to continue has not worked, and will probably never work.

Ah right, apologies I got the wrong end of the stick.

It's okay, 'cause Russia will play not against Israel or Andorra. =)