Many members in this debate overemphasize team spirit as the main reason for Croatia's success in recent years at world cups.
However, many other national teams have a strong team spirit, but they do not achieve nearly as good results as Croatia.
Was Croatia second and third in the last 2 world cups solely due to luck or team spirit? I think that's really an exaggeration.
In order to continuously achieve good results in the biggest world competitions, you must have quality players, and be on the same level as other top national teams in the world, such as Brazil, France, Argentina, England etc.
Ignoring this fact and trying to find other reasons for Croatia's continued success at major competitions in recent years simply does not make sense and leads to wrong conclusions.
Simply accept what is an obvious fact, that Croatia is one of the best national teams in the world, with some of the best players in the world.
@Daniel91 you are repeatedly bringing up that someone is saying Croatia is winning due to luck. May I ask you again to quote that line where someone said that Croatia is only winning due to luck? I never said it and I can't find any post stating that Croatia is just lucky. Please, quote that line for me so we can have a discussion based on equal information. Right now it seems you are including some weird interpretations or misunderstandings of yours
Your deep dive into team analysis has my soccer brain doing the wave! It really does shine a spotlight on that age-old wisdom, "the collective juggles the ball better than the lone striker." Or something to that effect. However, I've got a penalty to shoot your way. Are we getting a bit too caught up in the highlight reels and top ten plays? Like when you dribble down memory lane with France's superstars. Undeniably gifted, but do their individual shiny medals automatically make a winning team? What about those sleeping giants Belgium and Portugal, their golden boys still yearning for their trophy-laden dreams?
You've pointed out Brazil’s recent string of misses. But, could it be they're just taking a breather, a tactical pause or perhaps just reassembling their squad? History tells us, even the most robust defensive lines need patching up sometimes. When we flip the soccer coin to Qatar, we open up another can of worms – or should I say, a new set of goalposts? Sure, they've drafted in some high-ranking players. But does that magically blend into a unified team pulsating with a shared sense of purpose for the nation they represent? It's not just about rating teams based on their current form or individual flair. It's about the whole stadium - the chants, the scarves, the locker room camaraderie, the strength to rise from the ashes of defeat.
No, I haven't pointed it out. Someone else did and I continued the conversation.
@slapper you also include words I have never said. Neither did I say that Croatia is a lucky team as @Daniel91 repeatedly says while ignoring the facts of the conversation, nor did I say that " individual shiny medals automatically make a winning team". In fact, this is what I said:
There are games where the individual strength of a single player can be the foundation for the team's success, but usually it is the other way around. The team's strength is the foundation for the individual success.
You guys seem to like it to give specific twists to other peoples' sentences.
mv1986, I gave a general answer to all participants in the discussion in the last post and not just to you, so there is no need for you to take my answer too personally. If you took it personally, as if I were responding only and directly to you, I apologize.
Have I specifically mentioned you anywhere as someone who considers Croatia's success in football to be luck? Of course I'm not and I'm not claiming that, I'm just generally responding to everyone.
And where did my mention of the luck factor come from?
Honestly, when you come across a post like this, you can't understand it any other way than that someone thinks that the Croatian national team is not good enough and that it achieves its success for some other reasons, such as luck:
First of all thanks for the detailed reply. Excellent analysis, I should say. I don't know whether I will agree with the last sentence though. Winning the Euro Cup in 2024 will be a huge achievement, but I don't know whether I should consider them as one of the favorites. I went through your reply a few times, and then asked this question to myself - why not Croatia? When we talk about teams that are considered as the favorites to win Euro 2024, we always talk about France, Italy, Spain, England and even Germany. Croatia has been pretty consistent over the last decade or so, but a lot of people have difficulty in placing them at the same league as the other favorites. And I suspect this has to do with issues other than football. Croatia is a small country with 4 million people. It is difficult to imagine that they can perform at the same level as France or England.
I think the analysis forgets the fact that the names he replaced are much better than the players that they have now. Sure they have some good players, but to say Livakovic as one of the best goalkeepers in the world now? That seems like overrating him a bit, maybe barely top 10, but that's it.To say the least, they have a roster value that is matching teams that are not even in the world cup, surely they played better than their roster value but that is exactly the reason why they are doing good. They do not have great players, they never did, they had a few here and there, but none of their players were stars aside from Modric, who is the sole ballon d'or winner during Ronaldo/Messi domination period, but this game is played with 11, so they had 10 other players who were not really finalist level good. The thing that makes Croatio good is not the players, it's the team spirit they play with.