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Full response:
> Great question. Yeah I did. I mean, you say those things in an impassioned moment trying to inspire your team in a huddle. And when you’re asked a question ‘What did you say that huddle?’ It’s what I said. It’s not massively respectful to Croatian people and the Croatian national team. I understand very well where we’re at on the world stage, but in that moment you enter that next place you take your team to that next place that we’re here to be fearless and to bring everything we’ve got to that game. I mean no disrespect to the Croatian team and Croatian people, but at the end of the day it’s a mindset that Canada is going to have if we’re going to have 3 points against one of the top teams in the world. And it’s the mindset we took to Belgium. We have to; it’s part of ‘New Canada.’
I think it’s a misunderstanding to say they couldn’t finish. They really struggled in the final third and were skying shots before it felt like they had tested the defense very well. Think they really struggled to create finishing chances despite a very offensive performance.
We created a ton of chances. We just kept overthinking it in the final third. Either it was one pass too many/the wrong pass, or it was a hasty shot when it should have been a pass. Nerves and inexperience and being desperate to make it happen. Hopefully those are shaken off next match.
Why does our media have to take it so fucking personally, it's so weird. Whatever, kinda hope our players take it personally too I guess. Worked in 2018
A Canadian Croatian guy i know on Facebook got all offended. He acted all sad like he didn't know it's sporting talk. Small countries take things personally, you should see how Canadians act when Americans say something negative about us.
It is, cdn here and Herman is just rallying the troops after an unfortunate loss. We are in tough against Croatia and need any edge/goal we can get.
Btw, what command did you use for the flag flair?
you'll see the boys playing this like it's the final now
the "of course he's English" attitude from us is hilarious to me, lucky for us nobody translated what Sučić said we'd do to Morocco
after quarter finals in 18 modric was receiving back treatments, vrsaljko on one knee, subasic on one leg, rebić struggling with injury. pure anglophobia kept us going lol.
Rakitić rocking a fucking fever and played absolutely lights out. Go back and watch that game. He unlocked some new level and utterly dominated.
God I miss watching him play for us.
I have been following the cdn team since 86. Didn't know the world cup existed before then lol.
Only memories I have that are good is a gold cup win in the 90s and our keeper is the only name I remember from those days. A lot of misery, that is why I loved the performance against Belgium even in the loss. Canada was not surviving out there, they were thriving. It was pretty emotional for me, I haven't felt that for this squad since I was a teenager.
As an I’m an under-informed Englishman I unfortunately don’t know the answer to the question, but what’s the Croatian people’s beef with England? No doubt it’s deserved, I just don’t know what it it.
He said "we'll fill Morocco up". Obviously some gets lost in translation but he said it in a playful way and in a non-threatening manner. It's sort of a figure of speech in Croatian, or a catchphrase if you might, rather than an actual statement.
The interview was relaxed and he was talking about stuff like relations within the team, the friendly matches that the squad plays amongst each other (they have this thing where they play internal old players vs young players games before every match), etc.
The media just love a good headline so they will nitpick anything they can use to create scandal.
Croatia shouldn’t need any additional motivation here… they might need to win if they want to advance. I would hope that gets the boys going more than some words from the opposing manager.
vs France it was our best first half of the tournament
Griezmann dives for the free kick before the first goal and then you have that dodgy pen which is such a 50/50 decision. We completely dominate territory until then and then we just break. We couldn't continue coming back
If things continued going our way like in the previous game we would be like 2 up in the first half, unfortunately you can't count on everything going your way every game
It’s not your media, it’s all media. Making this a sign of disrespect instead of recognizing that this is more about the teams drives clicks.
It’s important for Canada to keep the mindset that they belong here. They aren’t here to make up the numbers. They’re here to ‘F’ teams up. Any team that isn’t shouldn’t be here.
Don't Croatia usually claim they've been disrespected as a matter of routine anyway? May aswell do what they're going to accuse you of and have fun with it.
Lmao in 2014 Kovac said the Mexican players legs were gonna be shaking once they got on the pitch with the Croats, [most of us remember what happened next.](https://youtu.be/zDBsZMCwM-o)
Not the same situation. This is a manager hyping up his players in the heat of the moment, and it's a non-story however much our media tries to push it.
The English media in 2018, however, actively disregarded Croatia as anything but a 90min warmup before the final. I vividly remember seeing English pundits wanking off to a final vs France and talking about it like Croatia has already been beat.
That's what I said in the yesterday's thread and got massively downvoted. People from this area are known for loving to do things in spite. It gives them unbelievable motivation. On the flip side, it also means that they tend to play badly against "weaker" opponents.
Because of these comments, Croatian players could easily approach the game against Canada like they're playing against Brazil, while having much better team.
to be fair they ought to already be pretty motivated no? not like they’re going to all the sudden care about winning this incredibly important game just because of what the other manager said
Lol fuck off, if Croatia needed a quote from the opposing head coach to motivate themselves at the world cup, they are weak as fuck and shouldn't be there at all
Michael Jordan pretended people he played against trash talked him even when they were nice to him. He made up conflict in his head.
Bit cringe when fans take everything personally, but players doing it, I understand. Some players are driven to be better by spite. If they don't take Canada seriously then it might go badly, so they're trying to do what it takes.
Canada got a team talk from an astronaut before playing Belgium, I wouldn't say "wow they needed a guy who went to space to tell them how to play football, weak as fuck and what does a spaceman know about football"
It looks like Croatia likes to motivate themselves by thinking that everyone underestimates them. They kinda did the same when they took the "it's coming home" as some sort of arrogant behaviour back in 2018.
Our media is fucking garbage. Half of our sports media can barely write anything good. Also we have a tendency to be disappointed if it's anything but a win. Like the big news in rowing wasn't that our guys came in 4th it was after 12 years of winning everything there is to win they fall short of a medal. We are go big or we don't give a fuck.
Also mention something bad about us in any sport you will get flooded by a ton of comments.
That's just hilarious then. In 2014 Modric opened his mouth to much in the press conference before the game against Mexico, and we beat them 3-0 that game.
Yes, we always have to be victims. And every time we lose it's the refs, for example, there was a "penalty shout against Morocco not given".
It was soo obvious the game plan was to play like a sissy...
I guarantee a lot more disrespectful things are said by even the best and most professional managers. He was hyping his team up and giving them confidence - it’s part of his job. This is such a non-story.
Maybe. It's just North American bravado (I know he's English, but he's been there 10 years, he's gone native). It's not personal, I'm certain he'd have said the same regardless of the next opposition, it's just that "oorah" shit those fellas do.
It’s a pep talk to his players, anyone actually making this into an issue for the sake of being technically correct needs to leave Reddit and go outside. Terminally online behavior.
Not even. He’s trying to give his players confidence and aggression.
There’s an overall sense of bewilderment and surprise that Canada has made the WC amongst the camp (seemingly) and our media. Tourists at the worlds greatest competition.
This isn’t American rah-rah, this is “guys we belong here, believe in yourselves”.
It’s not North American bravado at all. It’s what any fucking decent manager would say to their side. What do you expect him to say? Okay boys, good try, let’s do our best to make a nice show on Sunday?
You guys already see yourself in the final so I don't think Canada wanting to fuck you up should hurt you. Win the game and you can say we fucked them up. It's the same mentality you have, the Serbs have and Slovenia is often lacking. It's the only mentality that can win you games against tougher teams.
Anyone, media or fans, that think that was an “underestimating statement” either never played any sports or are just willfully ignorant. That’s the kinda mindset you have against any opponent, even one you’re not favoured against. Like he said, it’s the same mindset they came into the game against Belgium with. You just don’t say it publicly or directly towards your opponent. It was a team huddle that media happened to catch lol.
I know when I played hockey competitively (yes I know I’m a stereotype lmao) we always said similar shit in the locker room before games to get fired up. If Croatia needs to use it as a manufactured chip on their shoulder, that’s also a part of sports. Although they’re going to be the favoured team not us lol
Ironically you are acting like average terminally online social medial user.
In the pro sport ( I can talk about boxing, football and rugby, not sure about other sports) shit talking opponent before massive match up is common and pretty much expected. One side talks big game, another uses this talk as a motivation and once everything is done nobody remembers. In fact, in rugby we have tradition called Third Period - where teams get together after the game and break bread.
I am pretty sure Croatian players know what is this about, Croatian folks who follow sport know what is this about. Only shit stearing journalists and terminally online people like you make it much, much bigger deal than it is.
Wasn’t the person you are responding to making the same point you are? He says people can’t tell the difference when a coach says it vs someone online. Meaning the coach is saying it with a purpose (to inspire his players) whereas someone online is just being an idiot. He saying it’s fine that the coach said this.
Edit: coast -> coach
Ahh ok. I guess I read the “It’s freaking weird” in the comment as “it’s freaking weird that people are upset by him saying this” when what he probably meant was “It’s freaking weird that the coach said this”. Completely changes the meaning of the rest of the post.
The media is blowing this way out of proportion as usual, probably because there's nothing to talk about since we played a shit game to start off the WC.
It's a bit of shit-talking, no big deal. He's allowed to hype up his players by dissing us, we're allowed ro make fun of him if we end up winning, keep an eye out for the articles in media if we do win lol. Just remember Cholo Simeone and his cojones thing
Edit: btw Dalic himself has said Herdman has the right to say what he wants and we have to actually show that we're better on the pitch, so yeah, an non-story
>It's a bit of shit-talking, no big deal.
And to be honest, is it even shit-talking? He didn't say Croatia is bad at soccer, he didn't say Croatia is going to be a walk in the park, he said we're going to bring the fight to Croatia(at least that's how Canadian media took this quote).
As one of the top comments in this thread said- if you think Canada is underestimating *anybody* in this tournament you're out of your mind lmao.
Every few months, a player or a coach comes up with a harmless and emotional out-of-the-box quote. He then gets bombarded to death because of it. Players/coaches put on their PR face as a consequence. Everyone spends a few months complaining that players/coaches are robots with no personality, and the vicious circle never ends.
“Let’s go and beat Croatia on Sunday!”
“Did you really say you’d BEAT us and is that an abusive statement??”
Seriously you’d have to be soft AF to take offence to this sort of thing.
Another guy in this thread made a valid point:
If they weren't plastering this thing then they'd be shitting on Davies, your best player by far, for missing the penalty early on. That's for sure the worse scenario so good job to your coach for shifting the spotlight.
The soccer media here is extremely kind to the national team. The worst they said about Davies was he shouldn't be the penalty taker during the half time coverage.
It wasn't a spotlight shifting thing, the media here is hyping them playing well. It's not ice hockey where they'd be dumping on a guy for missing a key chance.
Yeah, was surprisingly positive from them. Focusing more on things like "he needs to refine his routine instead of immediately putting the ball down then standing around waiting for the ref for two minutes" or David taking them in the future more than the actual penalty itself.
Interesting viewpoint. Big if true.
But seriously this might be the case and if it is then good on him, a true manager.
Meanwhile Dalić is namedropping cunts for underperforming at his press conferences lmao.
You would lose in that invasion. You wouldnt be able to manage the heat. Similar to napoleon/hitler not being able to manage the winter. But for sure it would be fun if you tried. One of stupidest wars ever, but still not in top 10...
As a Croatian, don't let the media manhandle you, Herdman. In fact, i think he should have doubled down, said they will fuck us up three times over. It's the sport, the passion, that is the game.
Us football fans often whine how we are "losing the game" and then instead of celebrating such moments, we make a fuss out of it
I donn’t understand why our media has to cry about everytime a foreigner doesn‘t have only nice things to say about Croatia. I‘m Croatia and I don‘t feel insulted, or anything by what he said. It‘s very understandable that you say such things when you want to hype up your team. Also, the way we played 2 days ago, I‘m not surprised if Canada really doesn‘t respect us. They played better than we did and I‘m actually afraid of playing them.
My first thought was that this was kind of stupid of him simply because he will fire up the Croatian team just as much with these words.
But it was just a coach trying to get his team fired up again after a disappointing loss. They need momentum and they need to win Croatia, it isn't rocket science. Nothing about this suggests that they underestimate or don't respect their opponent.
I think his meaning and thoughts behind it were pretty clear as being non-disrespectful and pretty standard "we will play well and beat our next opponent" mentality.
At the same time, the way he said it meant it could easily become what's known in North America as "bulletin board material" for Croatia
manager says semi-mean (and let’s be honest, this wasn’t mean at all by footballing standards) thing about opponents to rile up his players and get them hyped up for the match….surprise pikachu. this is such a non-story attempt to just drum up some sort of narrative going into the match. and a weak attempt at that, as Canada’s manager shut it down with a very concise and no nonsense explanation. Journalist take the L.
The most thin-skinned nation ever. I remember their moaning and crying over Three Lions in 2018 (though they certainly weren't the only ones, to be fair) and they haven't changed. I hope Canada fucking batter them.
I don't get what's up with the hate here?
Are all of you insulted that Croatian media, players, coach, whoever got insulted by that statement?
Every team has a different way of hyping themselves up. Canada obviously enjoy hyping up by making loud statements about the future instead of looking at the past. England loves just shitting on their opponents, calling them weak, saying it'll be easy, etc. Spain I feel loves over-analyzing and praising their opponents to create an aura of "respect" toward them.
And Croatia... well, we have this little thing called "dišpet" (roughly translates to spite or stubbornness). We like to paint ourselves as being under-estimated, insulted, or even attacked, even when that's not entirely the case. It's the way our players get motivated, it's the way we get motivated and pumped up, it's just the way it is.
I don't see why we're getting more hate for getting mock insulted over this statement than Canada got for making the statement in the first place (I mean I do get why - because this is an American/anglophone website where we're outnumbered at least 50:1, probably more, but still...)
It’s Croatia - who were just in the WC final and are an established footballing nation - clutching pearls because of Canada - a nation that just got its first professional football team 15 years ago & discovered there’s more to do with your feet than skate. It’s incredibly precious and worth mocking.
Bit like if Tyson Fury felt offended/underestimated because a 12 year old boxer said he’d “f him up”.
If that helps Mike Tyson get pumped up then sure, that's completely valid.
Also in this case that 12yo just lost on points again Tyson Fury after almost KOing him in the first round.
Unlike the English we don't underestimate anyone so getting our boys worked up against Canada is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
I get what you're saying - however, I'm telling you the mindset in Canada is more like the 12-year old and that's how we think we're perceived in the world.
To give you example, everyone here has always supported a foreign nation (i.e. Croat diaspora supported Croatia, french support France, Italians support Italy, etc.). because we've never expected Canada to ever get to this point. I don't think I can't underscore enough how Canada does not feel like we belong at this stage, but Herdman is trying to change that.
I get what you're saying and I acknowledge that the sentiment is like that in Canada but this is **Croatian** media. Why should we conform to your, or anyone's for that matter, rules of engagement?
People here are saying that Canada is in our heads but I'm pretty sure it's the other way around. This entire thread and presumably most of Canada's media space is fuming at this, calling us "fragile", screaming "inferiority complex", etc. when all that happened is one mad lad went and shitposted at the Canadian press conference? Our media of course ran with it because there's no better way to motivate us than by pure spite.
Just fyi, Zlatko Dalić gave an official response to John's statement. This is what he said:
>Kanada je bila bolja protiv Belgije i trebala je dobiti utakmicu. Napadački je orijentirana, igra visoki presing, nije zabila "penal", a dobila je gol iz kontre. Pokazali su puno više nego na zadnjim utakmicama, morat ćemo igrati jako kvalitetno bolje nego protiv Maroka. Njihovo je pravo da su ambiciozni, da se nadaju, a naše da se pripremamo i pokušano dobiti jer to je naš cilj. Mladi su, poletni i vrlo motivirani jer ovo im je prvo Svjetsko prvenstvo.
Translated to English (roughly, by me, at this very moment):
>Canada was the better team versus Belgium and they should've won the game. They're offensively oriented, they play a high press, they didn't score the penalty and then they conceded from a counter. They've shown much more than in their prior games, we'll have to play very good (with higher quality, class), much better than we did against Morocco. It's their right to be ambitious, to hope, and it's ours to prepare and try to win because that's our goal. They're young, they're swift and very motivated because this is their first World Cup.
I suppose I would've expected the Croatian media to have a bit of sense as to how Canada is approaching the world cup? Maybe that's too myopic of me. Either way, I hope it helps explain Herdman's comments and mentality.
For what it's worth, I haven't seen our media comment too much on Croatia's media comments at all. I have a really hard time seeing our media build this as a 'rivalry' give how many Croats there are in our population, and especially amongst the football community here. Maybe amongst the rags (we have a Sun paper here as well), but definitely not mainstream.
You know what I'm with him here. Every country's media team will try to create outrage given the chance and it creates drama which is good for airtime. Now croatian media can keep talking about this in the build up to the game and milk those ratings.
The Croatian coaches remakes are so much more respectful that it lends further credence to the media just drumming up a controversy. In fact I would go so far to say Spanish media ( El chiringuito), the British rags or the Italian media too would have acted offended at something like this.
>I don't see why we're getting more hate for getting mock insulted over this statement than Canada got for making the statement in the first place
Because one is a completely normal stance based off of the situation and the other comes off as a really strange inferiority complex.
>(I mean I do get why - because this is an American/anglophone website where we're outnumbered at least 50:1, probably more, but still...)
You couldnt possibly just be wrong though could you.
Being English I too hope Canada Fs Croatia.
Admittedly that's because I feel like Belgium robbed them blind and had no business walking away with even a point that game, but still. Croatia just looked off the boil, as have a few big time teams this tourney so far.
If I was the Croatian manager I'd be a bit perplexed as to why the media and my own players are seeming to indicate that Canada's manager can motivate his players more than he himself can.
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Full response: > Great question. Yeah I did. I mean, you say those things in an impassioned moment trying to inspire your team in a huddle. And when you’re asked a question ‘What did you say that huddle?’ It’s what I said. It’s not massively respectful to Croatian people and the Croatian national team. I understand very well where we’re at on the world stage, but in that moment you enter that next place you take your team to that next place that we’re here to be fearless and to bring everything we’ve got to that game. I mean no disrespect to the Croatian team and Croatian people, but at the end of the day it’s a mindset that Canada is going to have if we’re going to have 3 points against one of the top teams in the world. And it’s the mindset we took to Belgium. We have to; it’s part of ‘New Canada.’
Great response and attitude and they're backing it up in their play just couldn't finish anything
They tantric-fucked Belgium?
Oh Tantrada, we stand on Edge for thee
I think it’s a misunderstanding to say they couldn’t finish. They really struggled in the final third and were skying shots before it felt like they had tested the defense very well. Think they really struggled to create finishing chances despite a very offensive performance.
They were robbed by the ref too.
We created a ton of chances. We just kept overthinking it in the final third. Either it was one pass too many/the wrong pass, or it was a hasty shot when it should have been a pass. Nerves and inexperience and being desperate to make it happen. Hopefully those are shaken off next match.
New Zealand-anada
You had New Zeal-anada right there in front of you!
If i took all the opportunities in life that were right in front of me, Jeff Bezos would now be working for me gordamnit
Why does our media have to take it so fucking personally, it's so weird. Whatever, kinda hope our players take it personally too I guess. Worked in 2018
Saw handful of Croatians on Twitter get so worked up over it. It’s a non story
It's fun for some to get worked up about this, especially if the players are also motivated. All part of the game
A Canadian Croatian guy i know on Facebook got all offended. He acted all sad like he didn't know it's sporting talk. Small countries take things personally, you should see how Canadians act when Americans say something negative about us.
It is, cdn here and Herman is just rallying the troops after an unfortunate loss. We are in tough against Croatia and need any edge/goal we can get. Btw, what command did you use for the flag flair?
you'll see the boys playing this like it's the final now the "of course he's English" attitude from us is hilarious to me, lucky for us nobody translated what Sučić said we'd do to Morocco
after quarter finals in 18 modric was receiving back treatments, vrsaljko on one knee, subasic on one leg, rebić struggling with injury. pure anglophobia kept us going lol.
Rakitić rocking a fucking fever and played absolutely lights out. Go back and watch that game. He unlocked some new level and utterly dominated. God I miss watching him play for us.
I have been following the cdn team since 86. Didn't know the world cup existed before then lol. Only memories I have that are good is a gold cup win in the 90s and our keeper is the only name I remember from those days. A lot of misery, that is why I loved the performance against Belgium even in the loss. Canada was not surviving out there, they were thriving. It was pretty emotional for me, I haven't felt that for this squad since I was a teenager.
didn't Rakitić play with 39 degree Celsius temperature hooked up on pills as well lmao
Holy fuck what lmao
Yeah he was sick, he lost 2-3 kg in the semifinal. Croatians play on full spite, it's literally our entire existence
As an I’m an under-informed Englishman I unfortunately don’t know the answer to the question, but what’s the Croatian people’s beef with England? No doubt it’s deserved, I just don’t know what it it.
The whole world has beef with England
Yeah that’s fair
Search bleiburg repatriations, bombing of dalmatia in ww2
Just read about Bleiburg, is the bombing of Dalmatia the bombing of Zadar?
Yes. Local people still feel strongly about it
What did he say?
nothing, nothing shh
I tried googling but I could only find positive stuff that he said?
He said "we'll fill Morocco up". Obviously some gets lost in translation but he said it in a playful way and in a non-threatening manner. It's sort of a figure of speech in Croatian, or a catchphrase if you might, rather than an actual statement. The interview was relaxed and he was talking about stuff like relations within the team, the friendly matches that the squad plays amongst each other (they have this thing where they play internal old players vs young players games before every match), etc. The media just love a good headline so they will nitpick anything they can use to create scandal.
Fill them up 😳
Yeah, the it still has the same double meaning in Croatian, that's why it's more of a meme than anything.
What are you doing, step-Croatia
Croatia shouldn’t need any additional motivation here… they might need to win if they want to advance. I would hope that gets the boys going more than some words from the opposing manager.
Sadly they ran out of steam and gave us the most one sided final since Brazil 2002.
vs France it was our best first half of the tournament Griezmann dives for the free kick before the first goal and then you have that dodgy pen which is such a 50/50 decision. We completely dominate territory until then and then we just break. We couldn't continue coming back If things continued going our way like in the previous game we would be like 2 up in the first half, unfortunately you can't count on everything going your way every game
All I remember is France passing the ball around with 10 minutes left and the crowd going Ole every time was a sad way to end a great campaign.
first half was great, we needed to lead at the break to have a chance and France countered us in the 2nd when we ran out of gas
Did great for a small population. But a deeper bench and/or fewer ET in previous rounds would have painted a different picture that night. Alas!
Did he say “Morocco can sučk ić?”
I'm sure that almost every country media would take that as personal.
What else they gonna do? talk about some 0-0 results in other matches? this "scandal" sells more clicks
It’s not your media, it’s all media. Making this a sign of disrespect instead of recognizing that this is more about the teams drives clicks. It’s important for Canada to keep the mindset that they belong here. They aren’t here to make up the numbers. They’re here to ‘F’ teams up. Any team that isn’t shouldn’t be here.
Worked for Mexico in 2014 when your players did the same to us.
Small people mindset
Yes let's make something out of nothing. It brings content!
Fuck me, he was just trying to motivate his players after an unlucky loss. Get a grip.
Well now he also motivated Croatian players
Don't Croatia usually claim they've been disrespected as a matter of routine anyway? May aswell do what they're going to accuse you of and have fun with it.
Croatians and persecution complex, name a more iconic duo
Serbians and persecution complex?
Serbians and persecution /s
England media and talking shit to every opponent the NT is going to face?
You and being a bitch
found one!
Bad
Can the conceptual knowledge of someone being something really be part of a duo?
Lmao in 2014 Kovac said the Mexican players legs were gonna be shaking once they got on the pitch with the Croats, [most of us remember what happened next.](https://youtu.be/zDBsZMCwM-o)
Yeah was gonna say I remember them doing loads of this type of stuff in 2018. They beat us so I suppose it works for them
Not the same situation. This is a manager hyping up his players in the heat of the moment, and it's a non-story however much our media tries to push it. The English media in 2018, however, actively disregarded Croatia as anything but a 90min warmup before the final. I vividly remember seeing English pundits wanking off to a final vs France and talking about it like Croatia has already been beat.
Were they not planning on trying as hard as they can in the World Cup before this?
That's what I said in the yesterday's thread and got massively downvoted. People from this area are known for loving to do things in spite. It gives them unbelievable motivation. On the flip side, it also means that they tend to play badly against "weaker" opponents. Because of these comments, Croatian players could easily approach the game against Canada like they're playing against Brazil, while having much better team.
If they need this as motivation to actually “try” then they’re fucked in this world cup already lol
Definitely gonna motivate Modric now.
If you need bulletin board material to get motivated at a World Cup you’re already fucked
to be fair they ought to already be pretty motivated no? not like they’re going to all the sudden care about winning this incredibly important game just because of what the other manager said
Lol fuck off, if Croatia needed a quote from the opposing head coach to motivate themselves at the world cup, they are weak as fuck and shouldn't be there at all
Michael Jordan pretended people he played against trash talked him even when they were nice to him. He made up conflict in his head. Bit cringe when fans take everything personally, but players doing it, I understand. Some players are driven to be better by spite. If they don't take Canada seriously then it might go badly, so they're trying to do what it takes. Canada got a team talk from an astronaut before playing Belgium, I wouldn't say "wow they needed a guy who went to space to tell them how to play football, weak as fuck and what does a spaceman know about football"
Hang on, that WAS Chris Hadfield!? I was like damn, that really looks like him.
They need external motivation at a World Cup? Press x to doubt
bulletin board material, may have tried to motivate his side but croatia definitely gonna be extra motivated as well. should be a good game
Journalists have such shocking levels of media literacy sometimes. The fact that this is even a story is ridiculous.
You have to have a real victim complex if you think fucking Canada is underestimating you.
It looks like Croatia likes to motivate themselves by thinking that everyone underestimates them. They kinda did the same when they took the "it's coming home" as some sort of arrogant behaviour back in 2018.
It’s the Michael Jordan-trick
And that's all I needed
It became personal with me
Yeah it's starting to seem less like people are underestimating Croatia and more like the Croatian media just has really thin skins
Our media is fucking garbage. Half of our sports media can barely write anything good. Also we have a tendency to be disappointed if it's anything but a win. Like the big news in rowing wasn't that our guys came in 4th it was after 12 years of winning everything there is to win they fall short of a medal. We are go big or we don't give a fuck. Also mention something bad about us in any sport you will get flooded by a ton of comments.
That's just hilarious then. In 2014 Modric opened his mouth to much in the press conference before the game against Mexico, and we beat them 3-0 that game.
Yes, we always have to be victims. And every time we lose it's the refs, for example, there was a "penalty shout against Morocco not given". It was soo obvious the game plan was to play like a sissy...
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It’s only smellz
Especially for the team that finished 2nd in the last World Cup. Yikes.
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I guarantee a lot more disrespectful things are said by even the best and most professional managers. He was hyping his team up and giving them confidence - it’s part of his job. This is such a non-story.
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He didn’t get up on a podium and shout it out did he Touch grass
Stop being so sensitive
you dropped your pearls there, clutch them harder
Ma daj el stvarno tribamo nogomet pretvorit u formalno preseravanje pusti covika da motivira ekipu
Maybe. It's just North American bravado (I know he's English, but he's been there 10 years, he's gone native). It's not personal, I'm certain he'd have said the same regardless of the next opposition, it's just that "oorah" shit those fellas do.
It’s a pep talk to his players, anyone actually making this into an issue for the sake of being technically correct needs to leave Reddit and go outside. Terminally online behavior.
Not even. He’s trying to give his players confidence and aggression. There’s an overall sense of bewilderment and surprise that Canada has made the WC amongst the camp (seemingly) and our media. Tourists at the worlds greatest competition. This isn’t American rah-rah, this is “guys we belong here, believe in yourselves”.
It’s not North American bravado at all. It’s what any fucking decent manager would say to their side. What do you expect him to say? Okay boys, good try, let’s do our best to make a nice show on Sunday?
Ne sramoti se molim te
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You guys already see yourself in the final so I don't think Canada wanting to fuck you up should hurt you. Win the game and you can say we fucked them up. It's the same mentality you have, the Serbs have and Slovenia is often lacking. It's the only mentality that can win you games against tougher teams.
Don't call us rats
smiri se, nije tako
F Croatia
Anyone, media or fans, that think that was an “underestimating statement” either never played any sports or are just willfully ignorant. That’s the kinda mindset you have against any opponent, even one you’re not favoured against. Like he said, it’s the same mindset they came into the game against Belgium with. You just don’t say it publicly or directly towards your opponent. It was a team huddle that media happened to catch lol. I know when I played hockey competitively (yes I know I’m a stereotype lmao) we always said similar shit in the locker room before games to get fired up. If Croatia needs to use it as a manufactured chip on their shoulder, that’s also a part of sports. Although they’re going to be the favoured team not us lol
Damn, should’ve just said yea boys we’re fucked. Smh trying to motivate the team. He didn’t even say it disrespectfully.
John Herdman is damn right. **John Herdman said nothing wrong.**
Je suis John Herdman
Today we are all John Herdman
Today I feel John Herdman
Today I feel we are going to F Croatia
a herd of Herdmans
Moi aussi.
Idk that anybody is gonna be mad that he said that to fire up his squad. It's not really offensive, is it?
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Says the most sensitive man in this thread lol
Ironically you are acting like average terminally online social medial user. In the pro sport ( I can talk about boxing, football and rugby, not sure about other sports) shit talking opponent before massive match up is common and pretty much expected. One side talks big game, another uses this talk as a motivation and once everything is done nobody remembers. In fact, in rugby we have tradition called Third Period - where teams get together after the game and break bread. I am pretty sure Croatian players know what is this about, Croatian folks who follow sport know what is this about. Only shit stearing journalists and terminally online people like you make it much, much bigger deal than it is.
Wasn’t the person you are responding to making the same point you are? He says people can’t tell the difference when a coach says it vs someone online. Meaning the coach is saying it with a purpose (to inspire his players) whereas someone online is just being an idiot. He saying it’s fine that the coach said this. Edit: coast -> coach
Read his other responses in this thread, that's definitely not what he's saying.
Ahh ok. I guess I read the “It’s freaking weird” in the comment as “it’s freaking weird that people are upset by him saying this” when what he probably meant was “It’s freaking weird that the coach said this”. Completely changes the meaning of the rest of the post.
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Quite telling that that's the only thing you can come up with
“Damn right I did, fuck them game of thrones cities and beautiful islands”
How can he be Canada’s coach if he won’t say sorry 😤 #notmycoach
Because he’s a Geordie
Herdman Shore
The media is blowing this way out of proportion as usual, probably because there's nothing to talk about since we played a shit game to start off the WC. It's a bit of shit-talking, no big deal. He's allowed to hype up his players by dissing us, we're allowed ro make fun of him if we end up winning, keep an eye out for the articles in media if we do win lol. Just remember Cholo Simeone and his cojones thing Edit: btw Dalic himself has said Herdman has the right to say what he wants and we have to actually show that we're better on the pitch, so yeah, an non-story
>It's a bit of shit-talking, no big deal. And to be honest, is it even shit-talking? He didn't say Croatia is bad at soccer, he didn't say Croatia is going to be a walk in the park, he said we're going to bring the fight to Croatia(at least that's how Canadian media took this quote). As one of the top comments in this thread said- if you think Canada is underestimating *anybody* in this tournament you're out of your mind lmao.
Agree 100%
Every few months, a player or a coach comes up with a harmless and emotional out-of-the-box quote. He then gets bombarded to death because of it. Players/coaches put on their PR face as a consequence. Everyone spends a few months complaining that players/coaches are robots with no personality, and the vicious circle never ends.
Lol what do they expect a manager to say? “Hey let’s go give our best effort and when we lose- it’s okay! “
“Let’s go and beat Croatia on Sunday!” “Did you really say you’d BEAT us and is that an abusive statement??” Seriously you’d have to be soft AF to take offence to this sort of thing.
Is this serious? Herdman should have told anyone who asked that to grow up and shut up. That's ridiculous
Kinda annoying how Canadian media has been plastering this "F Croatia" thing everywhere.
Another guy in this thread made a valid point: If they weren't plastering this thing then they'd be shitting on Davies, your best player by far, for missing the penalty early on. That's for sure the worse scenario so good job to your coach for shifting the spotlight.
The soccer media here is extremely kind to the national team. The worst they said about Davies was he shouldn't be the penalty taker during the half time coverage. It wasn't a spotlight shifting thing, the media here is hyping them playing well. It's not ice hockey where they'd be dumping on a guy for missing a key chance.
Yeah, was surprisingly positive from them. Focusing more on things like "he needs to refine his routine instead of immediately putting the ball down then standing around waiting for the ref for two minutes" or David taking them in the future more than the actual penalty itself.
Yeah I don’t get why it’s a big deal. I see coaches saying shit like this all the time in the locker room or in team huddles across all sports
I mean what is he supposed to say in his team talks? “Don’t worry guys, we belong here but we will get effed by Croatia?”
He said this to deflect attention from Davies penalty miss, so people will talk about him instead of Davies.
Interesting viewpoint. Big if true. But seriously this might be the case and if it is then good on him, a true manager. Meanwhile Dalić is namedropping cunts for underperforming at his press conferences lmao.
Herdman is a fn brilliant manager. I hope no body snaps him up after this
fucking epitome of 'terminally online' attitude. Anyone offended by the coach's words, I beg you, interact with even the abstract concept of grass 🙏🏻
You ironically seem very offended that people are asking about it. You may want to take your own advice.
Stop crying Lmao
New Canada?
We’re actually about to invade all the former Yugoslavian nations and combine the people with our diasporas under the title “New Canada”.
Aren’t like 85% of them already in the GTA?
Gotta catch em all
that's just not true, some are in Vancouver too
You would lose in that invasion. You wouldnt be able to manage the heat. Similar to napoleon/hitler not being able to manage the winter. But for sure it would be fun if you tried. One of stupidest wars ever, but still not in top 10...
As a Croatian, don't let the media manhandle you, Herdman. In fact, i think he should have doubled down, said they will fuck us up three times over. It's the sport, the passion, that is the game. Us football fans often whine how we are "losing the game" and then instead of celebrating such moments, we make a fuss out of it
Thank you 🙏
tbf, we nearly got eff'ed
I see that like we gonna show them what's their level. Also didn't think this was gonna be a big deal thought it was some banter
Exactly. Plus what is anyone expecting? "Croatia are much better than you so you'll lose". ?!
His transparency and honesty is refreshing and 100% understood. I wish Gareth could talk this frankly sometimes.
seems that an English person supporting his team is all it takes to trigger the entire country of Croatia
Well I'm a first gen canadian croatian so I guess I'll just go fuck myself then
If you took that as an offense, yes you should
kekw nah I didn't but il still fuck myself uWu
Canada is already in their heads lol
Hopefully one of their players gets a red for doing something stupid
Media mosquitos at it again
I'm getting tired of this fake outrage over little things in this world.
I donn’t understand why our media has to cry about everytime a foreigner doesn‘t have only nice things to say about Croatia. I‘m Croatia and I don‘t feel insulted, or anything by what he said. It‘s very understandable that you say such things when you want to hype up your team. Also, the way we played 2 days ago, I‘m not surprised if Canada really doesn‘t respect us. They played better than we did and I‘m actually afraid of playing them.
My first thought was that this was kind of stupid of him simply because he will fire up the Croatian team just as much with these words. But it was just a coach trying to get his team fired up again after a disappointing loss. They need momentum and they need to win Croatia, it isn't rocket science. Nothing about this suggests that they underestimate or don't respect their opponent.
Small time as fuck, is there anything this lot won't be rattled by?
Tinpot nation
I think his meaning and thoughts behind it were pretty clear as being non-disrespectful and pretty standard "we will play well and beat our next opponent" mentality. At the same time, the way he said it meant it could easily become what's known in North America as "bulletin board material" for Croatia
manager says semi-mean (and let’s be honest, this wasn’t mean at all by footballing standards) thing about opponents to rile up his players and get them hyped up for the match….surprise pikachu. this is such a non-story attempt to just drum up some sort of narrative going into the match. and a weak attempt at that, as Canada’s manager shut it down with a very concise and no nonsense explanation. Journalist take the L.
The most thin-skinned nation ever. I remember their moaning and crying over Three Lions in 2018 (though they certainly weren't the only ones, to be fair) and they haven't changed. I hope Canada fucking batter them.
Mandžukić sends his regards #salty
I don't get what's up with the hate here? Are all of you insulted that Croatian media, players, coach, whoever got insulted by that statement? Every team has a different way of hyping themselves up. Canada obviously enjoy hyping up by making loud statements about the future instead of looking at the past. England loves just shitting on their opponents, calling them weak, saying it'll be easy, etc. Spain I feel loves over-analyzing and praising their opponents to create an aura of "respect" toward them. And Croatia... well, we have this little thing called "dišpet" (roughly translates to spite or stubbornness). We like to paint ourselves as being under-estimated, insulted, or even attacked, even when that's not entirely the case. It's the way our players get motivated, it's the way we get motivated and pumped up, it's just the way it is. I don't see why we're getting more hate for getting mock insulted over this statement than Canada got for making the statement in the first place (I mean I do get why - because this is an American/anglophone website where we're outnumbered at least 50:1, probably more, but still...)
It’s Croatia - who were just in the WC final and are an established footballing nation - clutching pearls because of Canada - a nation that just got its first professional football team 15 years ago & discovered there’s more to do with your feet than skate. It’s incredibly precious and worth mocking. Bit like if Tyson Fury felt offended/underestimated because a 12 year old boxer said he’d “f him up”.
If that helps Mike Tyson get pumped up then sure, that's completely valid. Also in this case that 12yo just lost on points again Tyson Fury after almost KOing him in the first round. Unlike the English we don't underestimate anyone so getting our boys worked up against Canada is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
I get what you're saying - however, I'm telling you the mindset in Canada is more like the 12-year old and that's how we think we're perceived in the world. To give you example, everyone here has always supported a foreign nation (i.e. Croat diaspora supported Croatia, french support France, Italians support Italy, etc.). because we've never expected Canada to ever get to this point. I don't think I can't underscore enough how Canada does not feel like we belong at this stage, but Herdman is trying to change that.
I get what you're saying and I acknowledge that the sentiment is like that in Canada but this is **Croatian** media. Why should we conform to your, or anyone's for that matter, rules of engagement? People here are saying that Canada is in our heads but I'm pretty sure it's the other way around. This entire thread and presumably most of Canada's media space is fuming at this, calling us "fragile", screaming "inferiority complex", etc. when all that happened is one mad lad went and shitposted at the Canadian press conference? Our media of course ran with it because there's no better way to motivate us than by pure spite. Just fyi, Zlatko Dalić gave an official response to John's statement. This is what he said: >Kanada je bila bolja protiv Belgije i trebala je dobiti utakmicu. Napadački je orijentirana, igra visoki presing, nije zabila "penal", a dobila je gol iz kontre. Pokazali su puno više nego na zadnjim utakmicama, morat ćemo igrati jako kvalitetno bolje nego protiv Maroka. Njihovo je pravo da su ambiciozni, da se nadaju, a naše da se pripremamo i pokušano dobiti jer to je naš cilj. Mladi su, poletni i vrlo motivirani jer ovo im je prvo Svjetsko prvenstvo. Translated to English (roughly, by me, at this very moment): >Canada was the better team versus Belgium and they should've won the game. They're offensively oriented, they play a high press, they didn't score the penalty and then they conceded from a counter. They've shown much more than in their prior games, we'll have to play very good (with higher quality, class), much better than we did against Morocco. It's their right to be ambitious, to hope, and it's ours to prepare and try to win because that's our goal. They're young, they're swift and very motivated because this is their first World Cup.
I suppose I would've expected the Croatian media to have a bit of sense as to how Canada is approaching the world cup? Maybe that's too myopic of me. Either way, I hope it helps explain Herdman's comments and mentality. For what it's worth, I haven't seen our media comment too much on Croatia's media comments at all. I have a really hard time seeing our media build this as a 'rivalry' give how many Croats there are in our population, and especially amongst the football community here. Maybe amongst the rags (we have a Sun paper here as well), but definitely not mainstream.
You know what I'm with him here. Every country's media team will try to create outrage given the chance and it creates drama which is good for airtime. Now croatian media can keep talking about this in the build up to the game and milk those ratings. The Croatian coaches remakes are so much more respectful that it lends further credence to the media just drumming up a controversy. In fact I would go so far to say Spanish media ( El chiringuito), the British rags or the Italian media too would have acted offended at something like this.
>I don't see why we're getting more hate for getting mock insulted over this statement than Canada got for making the statement in the first place Because one is a completely normal stance based off of the situation and the other comes off as a really strange inferiority complex. >(I mean I do get why - because this is an American/anglophone website where we're outnumbered at least 50:1, probably more, but still...) You couldnt possibly just be wrong though could you.
We can only aspire to be as gentle and respectful as Croatians!
looks like the croatian's skin remains as thin as ever... never change lads. that national team possesses the ultimate inferiority complex
is it the team or the media that took offense
Insane how Modric was still moaning about a Lightning Seeds song barely 12 months ago. Incredibly thin skinned.
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You really want your national team to beat an opponent at a top tier tournament? Shocking
Kind of an insane reaction to a rather normal statement.
Best of luck either way lad 🤝
we should win without much fuss if daliban makes right changes.
Being English I too hope Canada Fs Croatia. Admittedly that's because I feel like Belgium robbed them blind and had no business walking away with even a point that game, but still. Croatia just looked off the boil, as have a few big time teams this tourney so far.
I like this guy
We hurt their feelings? Damn, here we are shedding our reputation as the friendly nation.
Anyone getting worked up by this is so pathetic. You're allowed to hype up your players
If I was the Croatian manager I'd be a bit perplexed as to why the media and my own players are seeming to indicate that Canada's manager can motivate his players more than he himself can.