Quote from: mv1986 on May 20, 2023, 11:49:10 PM

Quote from: Daniel91 on May 20, 2023, 12:13:46 PM

We are having a really interesting discussion here about Croatia and whether Croatia is on the same level as France.
Instead of guesses and speculations, let's look at concrete facts.
Croatia and France have played each other 3 times in the last 5 years and once France won, once Croatia and once their match ended in a draw.
Pure luck and coincidence, or a serious indication that Croatia may still be on the same level as France? Grin

I want to remind you that last year Croatia beat the strongest team in France with Mbappe in Paris 1:0.
In the final of Russia 2018, we lost to France after a very dubious decision by the referee regarding the penalty and after a very unfortunate own goal by Mandjukić, in the first half in which we completely outplayed the French team.
Of course, everyone has the right to their opinion, but in the last 2 world cups, Croatia beat Argentina with Messi, England, Belgium and Brazil in a row. Have we really had crazy luck every time or is it still a matter of the great quality of the Croatian national team and the sad lack of respect for Croatia by others?

I have a lot of respect for the Croatian national team and I would never say that a game will ever be easy for any team because it is against Croatia. Indeed, Croatia is an unpleasant, extremely tough opponent, but drawing any conclusions based on three or four games lacks a bit of substance. If you take this approach and apply it to Argentina vs. Saudi Arabia, you will get the same result. But that doesn't mean that Argentina and Saudi Arabia are equally strong and I guess you would agree.

The example is extreme and still different from France vs. Croatia, but there are probably not many people who doubt that France is the better team in regards to individual players. But still an outstanding team performance can beat France. When you want to have a look at numbers and then decide which team has been better so far, I think you could compare the number of participations in the final rounds of the World Cup and the UEFA Euro. For France it is 16 WC participations with 2 titles and 10 UEFA Euro participations with 2 titles. For Croatia it is 6 participations in each tournament and the best result was the runner-up in 2018 at the WC and two times quarter finalists at the UEFA Euro with the last one being in 2008.

I'm not comparing just a few games, but all the games at the last 2 world cups, on a sample of 14 games.
When we look at the results of all national teams at the last 2 world cups, Croatia is the second most successful national team in the world, after France.
We can go further into the past and look at all the world cups from 1998 until today and we will understand that Croatia participated in 6 world cups and won a medal in 3 world cups, in every second world cup in which it participated. No national team in the world can boast of such great success.
Before 1998, there is no point in comparing because Croatia did not exist as an independent state.
At all those world cups, Croatia defeated very strong national teams such as Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Argentina, England, Belgium, Brazil... so I find it really funny the claims that Croatia is not at the level of those national teams, as well as the claims that all its successes in the last 6 world cups, it was the result of some crazy luck and not the enormous quality of the Croatian national team. Please show respect to Croatia and stop underestimating the Croatian national team.