2018 World Cup: War and free beer – What Croatian mercenaries weld together

W After the final whistle, Luka Modric still seemed panting. Little Modric, what was he running? The great Modric, how he had struck again. Now he was drinking an isotonic drink and had the impression that he could not even get a straight set. His expression quickly brightened with a broad smile when he heard the question that he had heard so many times in recent days: if it is him, this fantastic midfielder who enchants everyone here, looking at him … Should he or not become a world footballer?

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Modric flatters the question, but in his smile he There was also a bit of reading on how Some people might first talk about football Oscars at a party like this, which has attracted as much attention as one. third place match until it was not so long ago. "I'm mad," he said, sipping his drink. "For me, only the success of Croatia counts."

The heroic goalkeeper Danijel Subasic is maintained against penalties despite a muscle injury. Ivan Rakitic inflicted the last penalty as he did in knockout stages against Denmark: whoever looks for individualism in this team of great individualists will struggle to beat him.

Mandzukic donates free beer to his homeland

Croatia in 2018 may not be as patriotic as its predecessors of 1998, who reached the semi-pedigree of the second tournament as an independent nation a few years after the end of the Yugoslav civil war. more than the heroes "are, as Rakitic said, but there are still biographies in him like those of Modric himself, whose family fled Jasenice in 1991, while his grandfather was there. been murdered by Serbian free-walkers

.Military people anyway, a small family country.Or where international players play free beer for their hometown during a Cup match of the World as Mario Mandzukic for the public at Slavonski Brod?

" For all of us, the World Cup is the biggest, we want to enjoy every minute, "said Rakitic repeatedly, sent home as striker Nikola Kalinic, who refused to substitute in the opening game, so the problems are huge, because for Mandzukic, there is no alternative in the center of the storm, and the former Munich is not the only one to hold in the second extension in just one week convulsions on the legs

Clbad in the regular 90 minutes again could not play a crucial role, that is what you want to badyze now. However, spontaneously, Modric thought, "it just had a softer taste." As the first team since Argentina in 1990, Croatia has now won two penalties at the same World Cup. Lucky, said badistant coach Ivica Olic, the former Bundesliga professional. But maybe a little more. "Modric and Co know for sure that this is the last chance for this generation.They will also release everything in the next games."

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32 years are Modric and Mandzukic, 30 is Rakitic, 33 Subasic – and "finally they did it," laughed the president of the Davor Suker Association, the figurehead of the years 1998. "The past does not matter which counts today.I see in their eyes that they are ready". They make it so exciting, however, that Suker had to spill a vodka in the extension, as he revealed: "For the heart."

Lovren and Vida become political

The ex-jovial star was like that after the ubiquitous play as Modric on the field, a good example of a delegation that is more accessible than any other team high level. The fact that they feel their country so strong and that players like Dejan Lovren hear the nationalist and glorious rock music of the war, as showed a video after defeating Argentina, n & # 39; 39 is not mutually exclusive among the Croats

hardly possible in the little corrupt league. In their team, composed mostly of highly experienced professionals, there is virtually no language that no one can, and hardly a country in which no one has ever played. And that's how you talk about it, like Domagoj Vida on a video clip in which he dedicated the victory over Russia "in the honor of Ukraine", where he was beating of foot for many years at Dynamo Kiev. Vida explained later, after a Ukrainian journalist had brought the film to the world and so caused the hosts. Relations between Russia and Ukraine resemble those of the war, and as the World Football Association is not politicized, it now decides

A lock seems unlikely, after the Shaqiri and Xhaka for their "double eagle" with a I'm fine. But the central defender with the blonde mane on his shaved temples and the sometimes crazy look, which had decisively contributed to the victory with his goal of 2-1 and a converted penalty, made the task easier for the Croatian, of course. Simply, however, this team does not seem to be able to do it.