After the historic 7-0 defeat against England in the Nations League, Croatia's national football coach Slaven Bilic was shocked. "It's hard to say anything after such an evening. It's the biggest defeat ever," said the 58-year-old after the debacle in Rijeka. Never before had a Croatian team lost an international match so badly. So far, a 6-0 defeat in Spain in September 2018 was the most inglorious record game in the association's history.
Bilic emphasized that his team had trained well. "We never expected that. Everything looked good, but then - do we call it a bad day, a total failure? It's pointless analyzing a 0:7, but we still have to find the reasons for it," said the former Karlsruher SC professional.
He apologized to the audience, which consisted exclusively of children up to 14 years old due to a UEFA penalty. The game was actually supposed to be played as a ghost game, but the children were allowed into the stadium for free. The official number of spectators: 6342. “I am disappointed, I feel sorry for the children who came,” said Bilic.
For the successor of successful coach Zlatko Dalic, who resigned after the World Cup, it is already a painful blow in the neck after just a few months in office. Four days earlier, the Croatians had lost 4-1 to world champions Spain. The game against England was a low point, not just because of the result, but above all because of the way it was played. Will things soon be tight for Bilic?
"It is clear that the responsibility lies with me. I am the coach, it is my national team. Of course we will analyze it, of course we will monitor it," he said. The quality of the English is no excuse. "I don't think England would have beaten Estonia 7-0 at that point. That's unacceptable for Croatia," he clarified. Already at half-time he said: "I told the players that I didn't expect a comeback. At that point I would have immediately signed that it would stay 4-0 until the end because I knew how our and their players felt." Things got even worse.
“A catastrophic night,” says Modrić
Captain Luka Modrić was also completely stunned. "You can't play football like that. If we had had two players less, that would have been unacceptable. But it looked like we had four or five players less. A disastrous night," he said, according to the Croatian news portal "index.hr".
Modrić has played for the Croatian national team since 2006. But now he would feel shame “for the first time after a game”. “It is unbelievable how we lost, how we lost our reputation,” said his country’s most capped player. He was substituted in the 57th minute.
National player Franjo Ivanovic made similar comments. "Since I've been in the national team, I've never experienced Croatia like this. A really bad day for everyone and I can't think of anything smart to say about it. Conceding seven goals against England is impossible. Something like that can't happen to us," he said on Nova TV. Next Tuesday Croatia will face Spain again.
The mood was completely different for England's national coach Thomas Tuchel, for whom the victory may have been a small liberation. After the defeat at Wembley against Spain and the lackluster competitive win in the Czech Republic, he had to face critical questions again.
“It was a fantastic win, of course an excellent result,” said a satisfied Tuchel. "The performance underlined this result. It was at the highest level from the first to the last minute. The pace, technical quality and effort without the ball were at the very highest level and I am very happy with the attitude."
