Jubilant Josip Juranovic has revealed the harsh lessons he learned by facing Vinicius Jr in Celtic's hammering against Real Madrid inspired his performance against Brazil.
The Croatia star was the standout performer for his flying runs down the right flank against the tournament favourites, while also keeping tabs on the likes of the Real Madrid superstar and Neymar in the first-half, before Rodrygo came on to try his luck in the second half. After a gruelling 120 minutes of action in Qatar the Celtic star helped his side reach the World Cup semi-final with a penalty shoot-out deciding the showdown.
With Alistair Johnston's arrival at Celtic Park many expect a bidding war to take place for the Croat when he returns to the Scottish Premiership after the tournament, but after the full-time whistle he was only focussed on the post-match celebrations. And he revealed that the 5-1, in which Juranovic missed a penalty, was key to the victory.
His post-match debrief was opened by Croatian outlet NL with the question "did you take Vinicius Jr out of your pocket or do you still have him there?". The 27-year-old laughed off the poser before responding: "We are enjoying this moment.
"The whole team played a very good game against a quality opponent. We are deservedly in the semi-finals. Let's go celebrate a little now, and then we have work ahead of us."
He stated Luka Modric's information from behind the scenes at the Bernabeu and the steep European learning curve with Celtic was vital to the showing. He said: "I spoke with Modric.
"Vinicius is dangerous, but the boys helped me. We played in the Champions League, so I know how he plays and I prepared well, but as a whole team we played well, we showed discipline" and we won.
"I thought we conceded a poor goal, but and played great. After the goal they retreated, we saw a chance there and thanks to Petkovi for scoring."
READ NEXT
