Dalic: Croatia gave up

Croatia boss Zlatko Dalic admitted his side ‘gave up’ against Spain, who ‘are much more vertical and dangerous’ under Luis Enrique.

“The best thing we can do is congratulate Spain,” said the World Cup runner-up after his country’s 6-0 defeat.

“It’s not easy for us to accept conceding so many goals, but we have to draw some conclusions. We can’t sit down and cry, we have to keep working.

“After their first and second goals went in, we started losing grip and Spain gained momentum, finding it easier to get into our box.

“We didn’t have the solutions. While we played as a team everything worked, but as soon as we stopped playing like that, it was over.

“After their first goal, we weren’t as focused as we were before it. We tried to do things too quickly, we started to abandon our game and you can’t do that against Spain, who were playing at home and controlled the ball. We simply didn’t pose any danger.

“After the second goal, we gave up and it was all over. I wasn’t able to motivate anyone during half-time.

“I tried to get a different second half going, but we went back to our game from the first half and it didn’t work.

“We have to learn from a defeat like this because we’ve seen what happens when we play as a team and what happens when we don’t.

“What happened happened, and that is almost all of Spain’s balls went in. Spain played some fantastic football and beat us convincingly.

“Spain still had good percentages in possession of the ball, but now they’re much more vertical and dangerous. That was without a doubt tonight.

“I’m not going to make hasty decisions after this game, but Nations League is an official competition and you have to see who can play in it and who can’t.”

Tags Croatia Spain UEFA Nations League Zlatko Dalic
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