Croatia

[Bobby Russell's Lovechild]

Smaller country than ours, not a great league, yet how the hell do they manage to compete like this?!?! They even managed to outpass the Brazilians

Edited December 9, 2022 by Bobby Russell's Lovechild

[mccaughey85]

14 minutes ago, Bobby Russell's Lovechild said:

Smaller country than ours, not a great league, yet how the hell do they manage to compete like this?!?! They even managed to outpass the Brazilians

Quite incredible how they produce such good players and perform so well as a team.

[Ally Bongo]

32 minutes ago, mccaughey85 said:

Quite incredible how they produce such good players and perform so well as a team.

Without a shadow of a doubt the majority is down to coaching with a sprinkling of fierce Nationalistic pride

 

[Debian]

Imagine how good yugoslavia would be these days 

 

[Hertsscot]

2 hours ago, Debian said:

Imagine how good yugoslavia would be these days 

 

Probably not as good. I'm no expert on the former Yugoslavia but as subsequent events demonstrated it seemed to be held together by Tito rather than any natural togetherness. Becoming an independent country may have been a catalyst for the sort of team spirit and resilience that we've seen in so many tournaments. 

[thesaint]

Yes.Great effort.Another nail in the myth of all that samba Brazil shit though.Ordinary or what!

[mcguffin]

3 hours ago, Ally Bongo said:

Without a shadow of a doubt the majority is down to coaching with a sprinkling of fierce Nationalistic pride

 

Apparently their goalie, Livakovic, plays in the tiny Croatian league. I'd never heard of him before this tournament. Today he was phenomenal. And they've got similarly high-quality players all over the park.
I just get this hunch that Eastern European countries (at least the more southerly ones with good weather) just are more into sport, all sports, from a very young age. Take a look a Hungary, pumping England home and away in the Nation's league. (And countries such as Croatia, Hungary and Serbia are good at other sports too: men and women's handball, waterpolo, basketball, fencing, canoeing...the list is a long one).

We need a total culture change in Scotland. Get all kids playing sport. Competitive sports in school as well as in clubs.  Provide them with good coaching in whatever sport they fancy and a place to play.  (Just my view, sorry for the rant).

[Barney Rubble]

Croatia - a country many of us couldn't have located on a map before 1992.

Since then, they've shown us how to achieve at major football tournaments and then some. That's the Scotland I aspire to.

[mcguffin]

19 minutes ago, Barney Rubble said:

Croatia - a country many of us couldn't have located on a map before 1992.

Since then, they've shown us how to achieve at major football tournaments and then some. That's the Scotland I aspire to.

👍

[Ally Bongo]

22 minutes ago, Barney Rubble said:

Croatia - a country many of us couldn't have located on a map before 1992.

 

Speak for yourself

The Balkans has always featured in the history of both World Wars and indeed the Balkan Wars of the 90s had it's throwbacks to WW2 when Croatia sided with the Nazis

 

 

[Barney Rubble]

25 minutes ago, Ally Bongo said:

Speak for yourself

The Balkans has always featured in the history of both World Wars and indeed the Balkan Wars of the 90s had it's throwbacks to WW2 when Croatia sided with the Nazis

 

 

Congratulations on your grasp of Balkan history.

My point was a general one related to the Balkan national football teams.

An innocent comment that has been comprehensively belittled by your intellectual superiority.

Edited December 10, 2022 by Barney Rubble

[Ally Bongo]

22 minutes ago, Barney Rubble said:

Congratulations on your grasp of Balkan history.

My point was a general one related to the Balkan national football teams.

An innocent comment that has been comprehensively belittled by your intellectual superiority.

 

1 hour ago, Barney Rubble said:

Croatia - a country many of us couldn't have located on a map before 1992.

 

 

[Clyde1998]

18 hours ago, mcguffin said:

Apparently their goalie, Livakovic, plays in the tiny Croatian league. I'd never heard of him before this tournament. Today he was phenomenal. And they've got similarly high-quality players all over the park.

I'd heard of him before the World Cup; plays for Dinamo Zagreb. He's good enough to play for an upper level club in England, Spain, Germany or Italy; I actually don't know why he's still in the Croatian league, aside from his personal choice.

[mcguffin]

3 hours ago, Clyde1998 said:

I'd heard of him before the World Cup; plays for Dinamo Zagreb. He's good enough to play for an upper level club in England, Spain, Germany or Italy; I actually don't know why he's still in the Croatian league, aside from his personal choice.

Thanks Clyde1998 for the info. That's interesting. He seems top quality. Looking forward to seeing him and his team mates in the Semi-final!

[ProudScot]

Bet their top teams are full of Croatians. No Rangers (1 Scot who’s retired) & Celtic (2 Scots) sort of behaviour. Probably 3-4 teams playing in Europe each with 8-10 Croats starting for them and then regularly exporting that talent into good European leagues. 

[stocky]

5 hours ago, ProudScot said:

Bet their top teams are full of Croatians. No Rangers (1 Scot who’s retired) & Celtic (2 Scots) sort of behaviour. Probably 3-4 teams playing in Europe each with 8-10 Croats starting for them and then regularly exporting that talent into good European leagues. 

Like I said above, their league mandate them to play at least 5 or 6 Croatians in their starting lineup.

I was there on holiday in October, can't quite remember the exact number.

Their league is similar to ours,(in size) their teams do better than ours in Europe, so it proves that it's a good policy.

Even oor smaller teams only have a few scots in them..

Is there any ,that start more than 6🤔

[Clyde1998]

10 hours ago, ProudScot said:

Bet their top teams are full of Croatians. No Rangers (1 Scot who’s retired) & Celtic (2 Scots) sort of behaviour. Probably 3-4 teams playing in Europe each with 8-10 Croats starting for them and then regularly exporting that talent into good European leagues. 

According to FBref, 56% of minutes played in the Croatian top flight have been by Croatian players. Players from elsewhere in former Yugoslavia make up just over 15% of minutes - there may be some dual nationality situations going on, especially with Bosnian players (7.6% of minutes). Dinamo Zagreb have all of their top six most used players from Croatia.

For the Scottish Premiership, it's 39% of minutes by Scottish players with 34% being from players from elsewhere in the UK & Ireland. There's a combined total of five Scottish players in the most used eleven players in both Old Firm teams (six if Scott Arfield is counted as Scottish); there are three Croats and three Americans.

[ghorne67]

If anyone has ever been to Croatia you'll notice bairns all over the streets playing football. I even saw some young laddies using the big solid oak doors of a pretty important and historic looking church for goals. Never see any kids playing football round my way. They've stuck a 4G pitch in for a new primary school and I haven't seen anyone playing on it still.

Obviously helps Croatia that they can be out in the sunshine kicking a baw right through from March to October. 

[ceudmilefailte]

58 minutes ago, ghorne67 said:

If anyone has ever been to Croatia you'll notice bairns all over the streets playing football. I even saw some young laddies using the big solid oak doors of a pretty important and historic looking church for goals. Never see any kids playing football round my way. They've stuck a 4G pitch in for a new primary school and I haven't seen anyone playing on it still.

Obviously helps Croatia that they can be out in the sunshine kicking a baw right through from March to October. 

If we had a national team that was any good our kids might be more interested in the game. 

I would imagine use of the 4g pitch requires money and parent organisation tough one in Scotland were there so many other opportunities to spend money 

Begining to think we are far to wealthy as a country. 

[Diamond Scot]

20 hours ago, stocky said:

Their league is similar to ours,(in size) their teams do better than ours in Europe, so it proves that it's a good policy.

Scotland have had a team in a European final 3 times in the last 20 years. Ive not checked this but id be very surprised if Croatia have had the same or more than that.

Scotlands coeffecient is current 9 and Croatias is 18 so I dont think its accurate to say that their teams do better than ours in Europe.

Without a doubt they produce better players than us but the above would point towards any home based player policy having a detrimental impact on their club sides in Europe but a positive in terms of national team.

We couldnt do that in this country as like it or not, a huge number of football fans in Scotland prefer club over country. As much as I wouldnt care about such a rule affecting club sides, I dont think its fair to make them worse just in the hope of making Scotland better.

Especially when there is other ways of achieving the same goal. Make it a rule that a certain % of turnover must be spent on academy etc.

[N4Footsoldier]

Lifestyle and culture in my opinion plays a huge part which was touched upon a bit.

Sport and conditioning for said sports are taken much more seriously in eastern European countries than Scotland. As soon as Scottish kids reach the age of 16/17 and are more likely to fall into the standard socially driven pitfalls of drinking, drug use, poor nutrition etc.

In these countries the general population live more humble, simpler, health conscious and less affluent lives (on average). Not to mention contrasts in work ethic, employment opportunities - all pushing them in the right direction when it becomes possible for young athletes to pursue sporting careers.

Obviously Croatia have nailed it in terms of their player development far over and above countries of a similar size. But the cultural contribution can't be overlooked.

[Diamond Scot]

2 hours ago, N4Footsoldier said:

Lifestyle and culture in my opinion plays a huge part which was touched upon a bit.

Sport and conditioning for said sports are taken much more seriously in eastern European countries than Scotland. As soon as Scottish kids reach the age of 16/17 and are more likely to fall into the standard socially driven pitfalls of drinking, drug use, poor nutrition etc.

In these countries the general population live more humble, simpler, health conscious and less affluent lives (on average). Not to mention contrasts in work ethic, employment opportunities - all pushing them in the right direction when it becomes possible for young athletes to pursue sporting careers.

Obviously Croatia have nailed it in terms of their player development far over and above countries of a similar size. But the cultural contribution can't be overlooked.

Totally agree. Parents being active with kids at an early age is huge for sport as thats when they develop things like hand eye coordination.

We have a population where a good percentage arent active. Therefore they arent going to be active with their children. Thats a hard cycle to break.

It no coincidence why so many athletes have children who go on to become atheltes. Partly because you can bet that a footballers child will constantly be playing ball games. 

In my own experience ive always tried to get my child to be active. Even from a young age to turn things into a mini game, roll the ball, catch a ball, bat a ball. Hop to the kitchen, jump on the spot etc etc. Anything that helps his coordiantion and hand eye. He is just about to turn 3 and is miles ahead of most kids his age. This doesnt neccesarily mean he will be really good at any particular sport but it gives him the basic tools if a sport take his fancy.

 

[ProudScot]

18 hours ago, Diamond Scot said:

Scotland have had a team in a European final 3 times in the last 20 years. Ive not checked this but id be very surprised if Croatia have had the same or more than that.

Scotlands coeffecient is current 9 and Croatias is 18 so I dont think its accurate to say that their teams do better than ours in Europe.

Without a doubt they produce better players than us but the above would point towards any home based player policy having a detrimental impact on their club sides in Europe but a positive in terms of national team.

We couldnt do that in this country as like it or not, a huge number of football fans in Scotland prefer club over country. As much as I wouldnt care about such a rule affecting club sides, I dont think its fair to make them worse just in the hope of making Scotland better.

Especially when there is other ways of achieving the same goal. Make it a rule that a certain % of turnover must be spent on academy etc.

The European coefficient is entirely down to Rangers recent exploits. Over the next few years the coefficient will drop as their achievements of recent times will stop counting. 

[vanderark14]

24 minutes ago, ProudScot said:

The European coefficient is entirely down to Rangers recent exploits. Over the next few years the coefficient will drop as their achievements of recent times will stop counting. 

🤣🤣🤣

fuck knows why you felt that was relevant. Was it just a chance for you to praise rangers?🤣

[Diamond Scot]

3 hours ago, ProudScot said:

The European coefficient is entirely down to Rangers recent exploits. Over the next few years the coefficient will drop as their achievements of recent times will stop counting. 

Or it will remain the same or get better depending on how Rangers and other Scottish clubs perform in Europe.  Nobody knows.

Point being was that teams from Croatia dont perform better in Europe using any measuring tool.

For a country like Scotland to have a team in a final 3 times in last 20 years is actually very good. I believe only Portugal can match that outside the big 5 leagues.