So what is next for England? Well, they are down and out, but that isn't the end of the world although that is probably how the fans feel, some of which are probably even getting ready to sell their "tears of sadness in a jar" on ebay. Yes, I said it. One fan did the same thign when England was eliminated from the 2006 World Cup after a penalty shootout against Portugal. How's that for "European football fever"? England should now schedule some friendlies and play the field while all of the other European teams that did qualify are getting ready to do the same thing as they warm up for next summer. As a matter of fact., this is a perfect time for England to sharpen their skills by playing teams that did qualify such as their archrival France or Germany.
The question that is probably on every soccer fan's mind: What will happen to Coach McClaren? According to FIFA, Coach McClaren is not considering resignation, but I think the English Football Federation has other plans as English fans call for McClaren's head on a platter. They did the same thing when England lost to Croatia 2-0 the first time last October. Yeah, there not very symathetic despite the fact that McClaren did not have much to play with as their best players, including rooney, were out due to injuries. The one stupid move of McCalren was his refusal to put Beckham in until the second half in which he posted at least one assist in the two goals taht England scored to get back into the game.
Croatia, whose nickname is the "vatreni", or "fiery ones", won the game 3-2 in dramatic fashion opening the scoring in the 8th minute by Krancjar, the former coach's son. England continued this nightmare with another Croatian goal at the 14th minute by Olic, one of Croatia's best strikers--that is before Eduardo arrived from Brazil and got Croatian citizenship. Then ended with Croatia up 2-0 improvng their aggragate goal againstt England in the qualifying round 4-0.
The second half got better for England scoring 2 goals to tie it up and quaickly increasing the aggragate to 4-2. A 2-2 score in this match would have been enough for England to advance alogn with Croatia, but Croatia wanted a win and it was
Petric that gave it them at the 77th minute and England was not able to catch up to get back into the game.Just because England lost this game, it did not automatically mena that they were eliminated because the Russia-Andorra game also ahd a lot to do with it, but Andorra isn't much of a national team to rely on as they have not won one game in their 12 game qualifyign campaign. Russia defeated Andorra 1-0 to take the three points to advance to the Euro finals next June.
After this match, the current all-time record for Croatia against England is equal with 2 wins, 2 losses, and 1 tie. Their total aggragate score is equal too at 8-8 in the five games (a 0-0 friendly tie, a 3-1 England friendly win, a 4-2 England win at the 2004 Euro Cup, a 2-0 win for Croatia and today's 3-2 win). This would be a perfect oppurtunity for the two teams to play a friednly sometime in the near future to break the overall tie.
What now for Croatia? First, Croatia should celebrate as much as they can before the national team gets back to business with scheduling some friendleis against some tough European compeititon and their individual players go back to play for their own clubs. In the near future, Croatia should schedule friendlies against France and Germany, who currently are two of the best teams in Europe right now. Czech Republic and rematch against Russia wouldn't be a bad idea either, maybe even a rematch against a South American team such as Brazil and Argentina, or maybe this might be a good time to play Montenegro or Slovenia, which would give the young Montenegrin national team some good experience before their first ever World Cup qualifying. I would love to see a USA-Croatia friendly as well. After beating a team like Switzerland, the United States could be a good contender for Croatia.
Croatia has once again reached their golden age, maybe even better than the 1998 team that won third place at the world cup, and they proved it by returuning to the top 10 in the international rankings. It took ten years to do, but with Slaven Bilic, a 1998 player himself, as coach and fresh young players in addition to Eduardo da Silva, Croatia is very close to becoming a European powerhouse and a 2008 Euro Cup run is defintely possible for this team, which contains young men that play for some of the greatest and most respected leagues in the world, most notably the English Premier League, the Scottish Premier League, Germany's Budesliga, Spain's La Liga, and Italy's Serie A.
In 2006, a song called "Srce Vatreno" ("Heart of Fire") was written, performed, and a music video was created for it, dedicated to he Croatian soccer team in the hopes that it would increase team morale for the World Cup. Instead, they were eliminated with a 0-1-2 record in the group phase only scoring two goals against Australia in an emotional game that saw a 2-2 tie while Australia and Brazil progressed into the next round in that group. However, since the song will most likely cause more energy now more than ever, I would like to end this post with the actual video from Youtube.
Here is another Youtube video of some fans at the Croaita-Brazil game at the World Cup. These pictures are proof that most Croatian fans gets along great with the fans of other countries--except for, sadly, with fans from Serbia and sometimes Bosnia:
GO HRVATSKA!!!!!
GO CROATIA!!!!
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