How come Croatia with a tiny population

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Re: How come Croatia with a tiny population

Post by Donzman »

mate wrote: Sun Dec 04, 2022 7:57 pm I think this is worth a viewing if you have time.

Dani Olmo of the Spanish NT left Barcelona at 16 to going the Dinamo Zagreb youth academy. Why? They said he'd start 17 rather than getting a shot at Barcelona at age 21.

This SPANIARD chose Croatia. We developed him into the fine player he is today for the Spain NT. He and rising Croatian star Gvardiol were teammates there and now are together at Leipzig. Gvardiol gets to know his future opposition, as well as just making friendships.

Think about what this does for Croatian development. A top academy. Now attracting foreigners.

It all works to produce a pipeline of Croatian talent. Final point: this is the minimum we must do to simply stay competitive. I don't know that Croatia, for all this, is good enough to beat Japan in our 2nd round game...never mind most likely meeting Brazil if we do in the quarters.

It's food for thought for Nigeria if you are interested. This is the minimal to be reasonably competitive, looking for a 2nd round or quarter. Any nation needs a stable society, academies, good league, and exposure to produce talented players that make coaching, tactics, and wins possible at the NT level.

Again, you all know this. I'm just giving a perspective.

Forget it, Nigeria knows what to do but refuse to do it.

The OP might as well ask how tiny Jamaican is winning all these sprint medals but Nigeria cannot even 100m finals.

I don't know how anyone expects success without preparation.

p.s.: I back Japan to retire Modric internationally. :taunt: :taunt: :taunt:
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Re: How come Croatia with a tiny population

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Donzman wrote: Mon Dec 05, 2022 1:36 am
mate wrote: Sun Dec 04, 2022 7:57 pm I think this is worth a viewing if you have time.

Dani Olmo of the Spanish NT left Barcelona at 16 to going the Dinamo Zagreb youth academy. Why? They said he'd start 17 rather than getting a shot at Barcelona at age 21.

This SPANIARD chose Croatia. We developed him into the fine player he is today for the Spain NT. He and rising Croatian star Gvardiol were teammates there and now are together at Leipzig. Gvardiol gets to know his future opposition, as well as just making friendships.

Think about what this does for Croatian development. A top academy. Now attracting foreigners.

It all works to produce a pipeline of Croatian talent. Final point: this is the minimum we must do to simply stay competitive. I don't know that Croatia, for all this, is good enough to beat Japan in our 2nd round game...never mind most likely meeting Brazil if we do in the quarters.

It's food for thought for Nigeria if you are interested. This is the minimal to be reasonably competitive, looking for a 2nd round or quarter. Any nation needs a stable society, academies, good league, and exposure to produce talented players that make coaching, tactics, and wins possible at the NT level.

Again, you all know this. I'm just giving a perspective.

Forget it, Nigeria knows what to do but refuse to do it.

The OP might as well ask how tiny Jamaican is winning all these sprint medals but Nigeria cannot even 100m finals.

I don't know how anyone expects success without preparation.

p.s.: I back Japan to retire Modric internationally. :taunt: :taunt: :taunt:

Japan may well beat us. And then we will discuss how and why? If they do, I still suspect it will have some commonality with Croatian success...social stability, the J-League, investment, global exposure, sports science, commitment, and culture...to produce a generation of Samurai Blue up to the task at hand.

I will be the 1st to congratulate Japan if they beat us...and look to learn from them and do better next time.
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Re: How come Croatia with a tiny population

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Wonder what population has 2 do with anything?
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Re: How come Croatia with a tiny population

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mate wrote: Mon Dec 05, 2022 3:25 am


Japan may well beat us. And then we will discuss how and why? If they do, I still suspect it will have some commonality with Croatian success...social stability, the J-League, investment, global exposure, sports science, commitment, and culture...to produce a generation of Samurai Blue up to the task at hand.

I will be the 1st to congratulate Japan if they beat us...and look to learn from them and do better next time.
Well, did not happen.

Good luck to Croatia going forward. :thumbs: :thumbs:
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Re: How come Croatia with a tiny population

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Donzman wrote: Mon Dec 05, 2022 6:49 pm
mate wrote: Mon Dec 05, 2022 3:25 am


Japan may well beat us. And then we will discuss how and why? If they do, I still suspect it will have some commonality with Croatian success...social stability, the J-League, investment, global exposure, sports science, commitment, and culture...to produce a generation of Samurai Blue up to the task at hand.

I will be the 1st to congratulate Japan if they beat us...and look to learn from them and do better next time.
Well, did not happen.

Good luck to Croatia going forward. :thumbs: :thumbs:


Thanks man!

:thumbs:

Like I posted on the game thread, I have no illusions. We were lucky to beat a dogged Japan. Just proves once again that the ball is round.
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Re: How come Croatia with a tiny population

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Like any other endeavour, it is all down to resourcing, planning, staffing and the pursuit of all round excellence.

There is no secret source. Sorry!
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Re: How come Croatia with a tiny population

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mate wrote: Mon Dec 05, 2022 7:03 pm
Donzman wrote: Mon Dec 05, 2022 6:49 pm
mate wrote: Mon Dec 05, 2022 3:25 am


Japan may well beat us. And then we will discuss how and why? If they do, I still suspect it will have some commonality with Croatian success...social stability, the J-League, investment, global exposure, sports science, commitment, and culture...to produce a generation of Samurai Blue up to the task at hand.

I will be the 1st to congratulate Japan if they beat us...and look to learn from them and do better next time.
Well, did not happen.

Good luck to Croatia going forward. :thumbs: :thumbs:


Thanks man!

:thumbs:

Like I posted on the game thread, I have no illusions. We were lucky to beat a dogged Japan. Just proves once again that the ball is round.
Congratulovia.

Well deserved.
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Re: How come Croatia with a tiny population

Post by Sleaky72 »

TonyTheTigerKiller wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 4:06 pm
Tobi17 wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 12:36 am Are achieving such unimaginably impressive feats in football? these is a country of only 4 million people (not even up to the population of the smallest state in the South East of Nigeria) talk-less of Nigeria, yet they are getting to the finals of major tournaments, I don't even think their local football league is better than the best football league here in Africa...so how are they churning out all these world class players? The thing really amazes me honestly.
If Anambra and Imo were countries, they would probably have won the World Cup by now. No quota systems to contend with❗️


Cheers.
Fighting words!!
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Re: How come Croatia with a tiny population

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Lolly wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 2:07 pm
TonyTheTigerKiller wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 4:06 pm
Tobi17 wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 12:36 am Are achieving such unimaginably impressive feats in football? these is a country of only 4 million people (not even up to the population of the smallest state in the South East of Nigeria) talk-less of Nigeria, yet they are getting to the finals of major tournaments, I don't even think their local football league is better than the best football league here in Africa...so how are they churning out all these world class players? The thing really amazes me honestly.
If Anambra and Imo were countries, they would probably have won the World Cup by now. No quota systems to contend with❗️


Cheers.
Results of the last National Sports Festival with no quota systems to contend with.

Gold Silver Bronze

Delta 158 116 110
Edo 129 104 108
Bayelsa 56 55 58
Rivers 33 34 61
Lagos 32 40 54
Oyo 31 30 42
Akwa Ibom 20 24 44
Ogun 16 23 39
Kano 11 22 33
Imo 10 13 26
Which state won in football.
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Re: How come Croatia with a tiny population

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I thought I'd update this thread with how Croatia is going about facing Brazil. I love this interview with coach Dalic. He stresses preparation, tactics, unity, and realism. No illusions. This illustrates Croatian football culture.

https://www.croatiaweek.com/croatia-coa ... lSaRQwwz_c

But most of all, he salutes the team and accepts we need to have a fun game, accepting Croatia are serious underdogs.

Here are some snippets:
Croatia’s chances against Brazil

“Brazil is the favourite, let’s not lie. They have confidence and a great atmosphere, top players, Neymar is back. Great national team, but we can oppose them, we have to choose tactics wisely. It’s not smart to go into a rally with them and give them space, we’ll do scouting, talk to the players. It is not a 50:50 match, but we are not outsiders either. We will try to be good.”
Here is the realism and praise, knowing our limitations:
We will see what and how, everyone got a chance and had their minutes. I said that we will deploy like that, considering that we don’t have someone who is number 1. There are no more attackers from Atletico and Juventus, now we have attackers from Dinamo, Hajduk and Osasuna. Don’t live in the clouds, we have what we have.

The guys are of good quality, they can and we will again look for the best solution there. It is not fair to these guys to dissect the game, whether it was nice or not. The boys have made the top eight in the world.

This is not figure skating, this is a fight for a result. Croatia made it and deserves praise. Whether someone scored a goal or not, they tried and that’s it. I congratulate the guys once again, great respect to everyone. We’ll see what we do. Whatever we did in Qatar was a good and successful move. When you are among the top eight in the world, it means that you did everything right. It will be the same against Brazil.”

The unity of this team.

The atmosphere after reaching the quarterfinals
“One of our reasons for being among the top eight and being here where we are is the family atmosphere, togetherness and trust, which is huge. Croatia is certainly one of the most orderly national teams in terms of everything, statements, treatment, fair play, games, behaviour… We don’t have any outbursts, fights, problems, incidents… We have internal punishments, but none have been carried out yet, everyone respects everything. I would like to thank the players who did not play a minute. When they grunt and do some things that are not nice, they usually drag two or three players with them, and we don’t have that here. I have a staff that is hit a million percent, it’s people who have played with the guys for a long time, who know all their secrets.
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Re: How come Croatia with a tiny population

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This! 👇🏾

I chuckle when people think population has some magic link to football ability. Plus people forget the country that Croatia 🇭🇷 was born from: Yugoslavia - which was traditionally one of the best football teams in the world before it split into 6 or so different countries. If Yugoslavia still existed, they would probably have been collecting trophies for most of the past 25 years, and would probably have stopped the Tiki-Taka era Spain’s 🇪🇸 streak.

Imagine the sorts of players Yugoslavia could have picked if they existed as one country into the modern era: Oblak in goal, Vidic, Savic, Kolarov, and Ivanovic in defence, Modric, Rakitic, Pjanic, and Tadic in midfield, Hamsik and Mandzukic in attack (Brozovic, Matic, and Perisic would not get into the team!).
EMIR KONGI JAFFI JOFFA wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 1:24 am

Because population is no indication of how a country will perform in anything, if it were India and china would dominate all sports. There’re probably more people living in mainland Lagos than Croatia but one is significantly more productive than the other. Nigeria is the most unproductive country on earth. Our football will continue to suffer until we begin to do better.
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Re: How come Croatia with a tiny population

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Croatia lost today but boy they still are an incredible team.
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Re: How come Croatia with a tiny population

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Aswani wrote: Tue Dec 13, 2022 11:14 pm Croatia lost today but boy they still are an incredible team.
Thanks man.

All in all I am happy with being top 4. We can still win 3rd place. We were 2nd place in 2018. 3rd place in 1998. We only became a country in 1995.

On the subject of football development, we have a great pipeline of young players. Gvardiol, Majer, Sutalo, Erlic, Sucic, Livakovic, Stanisic, and Jakic are all current WC players and young. We gave quite a few under 17-21 years olds that are at Dinamo and Hajduk academies, attracting top European club teams.

Modric, Lovren, and older players will help their development. It takes continuity and a greater ecosystem. I am comforted and confident by that.

I will continue to dream about Croatia winning the WC before I die. I'm 56 and time is running out. Maybe it happens?

:)

Again, I wish the same for Nigeria. Dream big...but do what it takes. You know what it takes.
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Re: How come Croatia with a tiny population

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@Mate- hard lines today. I think this is the end of a generation for Croatia 🇭🇷. The Modric-Rakitic-Brozovic-Kovacic era of midfield maestros (and Perisic) have reached the end of the road. There are likely to be mass retirements before the next Euros (let alone the next World Cup).

Gvardiol looks the business, but are there other players of equal potential ready to replace the current players who are likely to retire from international football in the next 1-3 years?
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Re: How come Croatia with a tiny population

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wiseone wrote: Wed Dec 14, 2022 2:20 am @Mate- hard lines today. I think this is the end of a generation for Croatia 🇭🇷. The Modric-Rakitic-Brozovic-Kovacic era of midfield maestros (and Perisic) have reached the end of the road. There are likely to be mass retirements before the next Euros (let alone the next World Cup).

Gvardiol looks the business, but are there other players of equal potential ready to replace the current players who are likely to retire from international football in the next 1-3 years?


Yes there are. I listed in my previous post the current young pros on the NT. But there are a lot of 17-21 year olds who are stepping up for the next WC cycle. Some hot names are:

Roko Simic; 17; forward; Liefering , Austria.
Gabriel Vidovic; 18; midfielder; Bayern, Germany.
Martin Baturina, 19; midfielder; Dinamo.

You never know of course in predicting youth success. But expectations are high. Roko Simic is being called the Croatian Haaland.

:roll:

https://www.football.london/arsenal-fc/ ... r-23485768

Like I said, some hype. But we have a pipeline of such players. Simic is expected to develop with Luka Sucic, who is 20 and on the current WC squad, to be the next cutting edge attackers for us.

I can't criticize Croatian management, infrastructure, and leagues. They give the necessary opportunities. It will come down to producing talent that can win.

Clearly for all this, you saw this tournament we don't have a current good striker. Rare for us. I hope some of these young guys emerge.

Football is like that.
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Re: How come Croatia with a tiny population

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You know what I was thinking a while ago, Modric is deemed one of the bext in the world, which he is, however he isn't in the top two best midfielders Croatia have ever had, the fella is still behind Boban and Prosinecki in my opinion.

And this team is not even as good as the France 98 team or the one from the last World cup. Still a good team though.

I once saw Boskic play live, up there with Henry, Suker and Bergkamp as the best players to see what they are doing off the ball.
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Re: How come Croatia with a tiny population

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Modric-Rakitic-Prosinecki-Boban-Savicevic-Stojkovic-Jugovic…what on earth did they feed kids in Yugoslavia to churn out so many brilliant midfielders? The really scary part is that the last 5 of those played for the same club team as well! 😳 (the Red Star Belgrade team that won the European Cup in 1991)
Aswani wrote: Wed Dec 14, 2022 10:58 am You know what I was thinking a while ago, Modric is deemed one of the bext in the world, which he is, however he isn't in the top two best midfielders Croatia have ever had, the fella is still behind Boban and Prosinecki in my opinion.

And this team is not even as good as the France 98 team or the one from the last World cup. Still a good team though.

I once saw Boskic play live, up there with Henry, Suker and Bergkamp as the best players to see what they are doing off the ball.
Last edited by wiseone on Fri Dec 16, 2022 5:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: How come Croatia with a tiny population

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Aswani wrote: Wed Dec 14, 2022 10:58 am You know what I was thinking a while ago, Modric is deemed one of the bext in the world, which he is, however he isn't in the top two best midfielders Croatia have ever had, the fella is still behind Boban and Prosinecki in my opinion.

And this team is not even as good as the France 98 team or the one from the last World cup. Still a good team though.

I once saw Boskic play live, up there with Henry, Suker and Bergkamp as the best players to see what they are doing off the ball.


All the players you listed are good no doubt. And that 1998 team was brilliant, only of Boksic wasn't injured and played in that World Cup.

But I really think Modric is the top player we ever had. 5 CLs. He got us to 2 consecutive semifinals...the 2018 team in the final, our best team ever.

If you take Modric out of this team, we might not pass the 1st round...again, this current Croatia team has not 1 striker at this level of the game. Pretty shocking for our tradition.
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Re: How come Croatia with a tiny population

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wiseone wrote: Wed Dec 14, 2022 2:50 pm …you can add Jugovic as well.

Modric-Rakitic-Prosinecki-Boban-Savicevic-Stojkovic-Jugovic…what on earth did they feed kids in Yugoslavia to churn out so many brilliant midfielders? The really scary part is that the last 5 of those played for the same club team as well! 😳 (the Red Star Belgrade team that won the European Cup in 1991)
Aswani wrote: Wed Dec 14, 2022 10:58 am You know what I was thinking a while ago, Modric is deemed one of the bext in the world, which he is, however he isn't in the top two best midfielders Croatia have ever had, the fella is still behind Boban and Prosinecki in my opinion.

And this team is not even as good as the France 98 team or the one from the last World cup. Still a good team though.

I once saw Boskic play live, up there with Henry, Suker and Bergkamp as the best players to see what they are doing off the ball.


Of all the ex-Yugoslav republics, Croatia by far has the most success. All produce some good players, but not at the scale of Croatia. I tie this back to what I wrote earlier in this thread...we have 1) academies 2) solid league 3) support for families 4) culture, as football is important 5) crazy as it sounds...the sea & warm weather.

But even now, there is no guarantee we will continue to produce such players. I listed the pipeline, which seems good...but you never know.

It just illustrates how hard it is to produce good players, let alone a winning team.

On that, keep in mind we sucked from 2006-2014. Just could not get our act together. Not terrible players, but not the best...and we had to overhaul the staff in the Croatian FA.

Also crazy as it sounds, Mamic, a mafiso, dominated Dinamo. To make a long story short, he's a crook and stole. But he actually did the right thing for Croatian football by reforming it...and then stealing some of the profits.

Mamic instilled the idea that it is better to do things the right way to generate more revenue. So raise and develop players properly to later sell for big $$$. Than to sell young players for quick $$$ before they develop.

At some point Croatian agents were marketing hyped players for that quick sale. Mamic and co stopped that. Don't get me wrong, as he is a crook. But like I said...he did things the right way for soccer and then stole. I am not sure an honest man could have been as effective?

Life is weird this way, isn't it?
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Re: How come Croatia with a tiny population

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To anybody on this thread: given our exchanges, how does the Croatian model compare to Nigeria? Is there anything Nigeria can do from any of this? Can Croatia adopt something working for Nigeria?
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Re: How come Croatia with a tiny population

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Mate, Croatia's 🇭🇷 model cannot be transplanted to Nigeria; given the massive ethno-regional, religious, and social complexities in the latter country.

To give you context, would Croatia's current model have worked in the old Yugoslavia?

mate wrote: Wed Dec 14, 2022 10:49 pm To anybody on this thread: given our exchanges, how does the Croatian model compare to Nigeria? Is there anything Nigeria can do from any of this? Can Croatia adopt something working for Nigeria?
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Re: How come Croatia with a tiny population

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wiseone wrote: Wed Dec 14, 2022 10:57 pm Mate, Croatia's 🇭🇷 model cannot be transplanted to Nigeria; given the massive ethno-regional, religious, and social complexities in the latter country.

To give you context, would Croatia's current model have worked in the old Yugoslavia?

mate wrote: Wed Dec 14, 2022 10:49 pm To anybody on this thread: given our exchanges, how does the Croatian model compare to Nigeria? Is there anything Nigeria can do from any of this? Can Croatia adopt something working for Nigeria?


Well it did in some respects: great academies, leagues, and social support...produced the players.

But I concede Yugoslavia lacked the unity to pick the best players because proportional representation was more important...not least because Serbians were the largest group and insisted on this, even when our players were the best.

Don't look to Yugoslavia in this context. Look to the USA, France, Australia, Germany, and Belgium. Yes, those societies are pretty multicultural...but still are working towards producing good football, which can bridge and mitigate some the complexities.

I have this crazy idea that good football will produce a good socioeconomic outcome...whatever that outcome might be.
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Re: How come Croatia with a tiny population

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mate, I am interested in how the national team will weather the transition of Modric from top player/retirement.
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