When will Eduardo come back?

The Croatian National soccer team needs help. Despite a pretty good showing at the Euro 2008 group stage (where they went undefeated-their wins included an upset of Germany who despite this still went on to claim second place in the tournament after losing to Spain in the final), Croatia had a heartbreaking loss in the quarterfinals against Turkey and had a terrible start to their World Cup 2010 qualifying campaign. They are currently in second place in group 6--a qualifying position if qualifying position if Croatia can win a few more games but in World Cup qualifying this can be somewhat dangerous since only the group winners qualify automatically while 8 out of the 9 runner ups (according to record) must play in a playoff in order to to have a chance at World Cup glory. Croatia has played 4 out of their 10 qualifying matches. and their next one is not until April so it looks like we're going have wait a few more months before things get rolling again in respect to the World Cup. In their four qualifying matches, Croatia's record is 2-1-1 which gives them 7 points and 5 points behind current group leader England. Here is a short analysis of Croatia's qualifying campaign so far:

Sept. 6, 2008: Croatia vs Kazakhstan 3-0 (Zagreb) Croatia kicked things off on a good note with a 3-0 shut out against the Kazakhis (I can just picture Borat sobbing in a dark room somewhere saying "that no nice") but anyway this was somewhat expected and not really that impressive of a win.

Sept. 10, 2008: Croatia vs England 1-4 (Zagreb) It was a sad day to be a Croatian on this beautiful September day which saw Croatia lose their first match in Maksimir Stadium in Zagreb since May 28, 2000 when they lost a friendly against France 2-0. The "Vatreni" remained in Zagreb to face off against the English and lets just say the English got their revenge in dramatic style crushing Croatia 4-1. This kind of score would have been expected 5 to 10 years ago but after seeing Croatia beating England last November and their game against Germany in Euro 2008, the match should have been tighter than this. The first half ended 1-0 for England and Croatia played fairly well--I could even say it was the same Croatian team we say back in Euro 2008 but in the second half a red card caused Robert Kovac to be sent off at the 52nd minute forcing Croatia to play 38 minutes down a man. Since then, things started to go downhill fact while England scored 3 more goals at the 59th, 63rd, and 82nd minutes. Croatia, only goal was scored my newcomer Mario Mandzukic at the 78th minute but this was too little too late. Although Mandzukic does seem like a promising new player, the loss shocked the 35, 218 fans that were in attendance according to this FIFA Match Report. This was the last time I actually watched Croatia play on TV since the game was being shown on Time Warner Cable PPV which I watched at my friend's house. Hopefully more games will be shown. Despite this loss, I'm still hopeful that Croatia may defeat England when they play in London on September 9, 2009 (my 23rd birthday and the second to last game for Croatia in the qualifying round). This could end up being a crucial match for Croatia's chances. What makes me hopeful for a Croatia win or at least a tie is a quote from Capello, England's new coach, that I read in an issue of the Croatian Chronicle after the Croatia-England match in Zagreb. According to Capello, the English players biggest weakness still seems to be the pressure their fans put on them in London which affects their play. While England may have killed Croatia on goal difference now, Slaven Bilic and the boys still have a major opportunity to even the score but first they cannot mess against a team like Belarus or Kazakhstan or esle things will be a lot harder later on.

Oct 11, 2008: Ukraine vs Croatia 0-0 (Kharkov) A month after the disaster in England, Croatia went to Kharkov, Ukraine to play a determined Ukrainian team. This match, although Croatia gained a point in the standings, it did not do much for Croatia's goal difference, which is the only thing separating Croatia and Ukraine in the standings right now being that they are tied on points. Croatia's goal difference is currently 8-4 (+4) while Ukraine's is 4-1 (+3). Ukraine is a fairly strong team that could do some damage as they play some of the weaker teams in the group such as Andorra and Belarus. Englands goal difference right now is 14-3 (+11) which is not a good sign if Croatia somehow ties England on points somewhere a long the line.

The latest match Croatia played was against Andorra on October 15 in Zagreb. Another weak team, Andorra has lost al of its four qualifying match so far. Croatia defeated them 4-0--again not that impressive since Andorra is a very weak team and has scored only 1 goal in their last 4 qualifying matches which includes the match against Croatia.

With da Silva still out, Slaven Bilic has expected Luka Modric, who currently plays for English club Tottenham, to step up, but he is currently struggling to find his form while playing for Tottenham and this has carried over to the national tea as well.

So, what will Croatia need to boost their qualifying campaign? The return of Eduardo da Silva won't hurt. One Eduardo da Silva fan site reports that the Brazilian born striker will return to his English club Arsenal before Christmas of this year (hopefully in November) and therefore should be available as Croatia gets ready to continue their qualifying campaign in April. This news came from Arsenal's coach a few months ago.

Eduardo da Silva told Sky News Sports that his recovery was going well. "I was in Brazil for four months, I worked hard every day doing two sessions for six or seven hours every day." Da Silva also told Sky News Sports that it frustrating for him because at the time of his tragic injury--an injury that made many believe that he was never going to play again-Arsenal was "scoring a lot of goals and doing good in the table." Eduardo received his injury last February. Manchester United has already won the English Premier League Title for the 2007-2008 season.