The Croatia manager, Zlatko Dalic, has launched an impassioned defence of his side, insisting it is wrong they are viewed as dark horses to win Euro 2024 compared to England despite being more successful than Gareth Southgate’s side in recent years and saying his team deserve more respect.
Dalic delved into the history books and brought up England’s record to emphasise his side’s credentials before Croatia face Albania in Hamburg on Wednesday. In a punchy press conference, Dalic said he is fed up of his team being patronised and he took aim at those writing off his side after a difficult start in Germany. Croatia, whose base is in Neuruppin, an hour northwest of Berlin, lost their opening Group B match 3-0 against Spain.
“It wasn’t a pretty sight, it wasn’t great to watch, we didn’t get a great feeling,” Dalic said of the defeat, before airing his frustrations. “But we are always the dark horse, we are always not among the favourites, nobody believes in us but in the past six years we have won three medals. After France, our national team is the first team to have done this so I always keep saying that Croatia deserves greater respect from everyone else for what we have managed to do.
“We have won three medals, England won one [more than] 50 years ago but they are a great team, we are not, we are always the dark horse. We are little but we are brave, we will fight and we have the evidence of thousands of Croats in Berlin. We are a nation that is entitled to feel proud and our results show that we are better than our perception.
“I know after this defeat [against Spain] there is a lot of pessimism and negativity but we will give our best and we are doing the best to be the best we can. Everything we have done in the past six, seven years, we have to look at that and feel proud. Croatia is much better than is said and seen in the public.”
Croatia were runners-up at the World Cup in Russia in 2018, third in Qatar in 2022 and Nations League runners-up last year. England, who won the World Cup in 1966, were runners-up at the delayed Euro 2020 and finished third in the Nations League in 2019.
The forward Bruno Petkovic, a substitute against Spain, is in line to start against Albania but the midfielder Nikola Vlasic has been sent home from the tournament after sustaining a muscle injury. “We want to correct everything that was bad in the first game,” the winger Ivan Perisic said.
