The national team of Croatia stopped in the semi-finals of the World Cup in Qatar, suffering a decisive defeat from the national team of Argentina (3:0), at the end of the match, in which Lionel Messi once again emerged as the leader. puma camp

The national team of Croatia for the 2022 World CupPhoto: CHRIS BRUNSKILL/UPI/Profimedia

>> CM 2022: Morocco pulls off another big surprise in semi-final with France

Immediately after the match, Luka Modric sharply criticized the refereeing, saying that the penalty awarded against Argentina mentally destabilized the Croatians.

Ihor Pamich, Zoran Vulich and Yurika Vranjesh, critics of refereeing – “We are a better team than Argentina”

In an interview with sportke.jutarnji.hr, Croatian Ihor Pamic, who played 5 matches and scored once for the national team, said that the Croatian team is superior to the Argentine one at the football level, despite the result on Tuesday night.

“Maybe what I’m going to say now will be stupid, but I still think we’re a better team than Argentina. But we couldn’t show it, and mistakes led us to defeat. I think we should have been more dangerous to solve the problem with a goal or two in the first half of the match.

Already after twenty minutes of play, our players started to get angry. It was also seen in many individual mistakes, eg Guardiol, Sosa. In this championship, we were effective only against Canada.

Something has to end, you can’t always win without scoring a goal or just one. But our boys have achieved tremendous success, hats off to them, congratulations.” – he noted.

If Ihor Pamych did not raise the topic of arbitration at all, then Zoran Vulic (former player of the Croatian national team, 3 selections) spoke passionately about the decision of the “knights of the whistle”.

“I started the match against Argentina well. One carelessness cost us, and the referee’s decision to award a penalty took the game in the wrong direction. I don’t understand why VAR wasn’t called, I think it was an attacking foul.

We played well until we conceded the second goal, which shouldn’t happen to us. The second goal sent the second half in the wrong direction. We couldn’t take the ball away and take control of the game.”

On the other hand, Yurika Vranjes noticed the absence of a real striker in the Croatia camp and believes that there were some mistakes in the match against Argentina.

“I didn’t start better in any World Cup match. As long as we were focused we were very good but unfortunately two unfortunate and clumsy mistakes decided the game.

In the first goal, before the counterattack, the ball passed under Modric’s leg, in the second, Brozovich crossed, hit the opponent’s player and was counterattacked again.

Juranovic and Sosa could repel the danger, but the ball bounced off Alvarez. It broke the game.

From then on, we dominated the game. Up to 35 meters from the opponent’s goal, we are well done, we are super, we control everything, no one can match us.

But we lack the last step in the attack. We don’t have Mandzukic, Olic, Boksic or Suker like in the past. We have everything but strikers like that and that’s why we look so harmless in attacking play, so we rarely get a chance to break through on goal.

But we have achieved great success, now we are going for bronze. My only regret is that Argentina is not at all better than us, the game could have gone in our favor if not for those mistakes. Two unforced errors prevented us from reaching the finals.”

Croatia will be playing in the World Cup minor final for the third time and have won bronze only once, in 1998.