How Zlatko Dalic - with a little help from the Class of ’98 - has made Croatia tick

Dalic leading the Croatia team-talk during the win over England
AFP/Getty Images

On the eve of Croatia’s first group game against Nigeria, coach Zlatko Dalic gathered his squad together to watch the film vatreni - a documentary about Croatia’s 1998 World Cup, when for one glorious summer the team united a fractious new nation and finished third in France.

“That magic, beautiful, amazing, unforgettable ’98,” says former Wimbledon champion Goran Ivanisevic, one of the film’s talking heads.

The Class of ’98 might have felt like a burden to Croatia’s latest team, but Dalic has never been afraid to use them as sources of inspiration and guidance. Drazen Ladic and Marjan Mrmic, both goalkeepers in that squad, are part of his coaching staff, along with another former international, Ivica Olic.

Even so, before Sunday’s World Cup Final against France, Dalic will likely urge his players to forget the past and further immortalise themselves in the history of their nation. “We can’t live on past glory,” he said before the tournament.

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Dalic is a believer and, for the 51-year-old, a place in Sunday’s showpiece at the Luzhniki is no less than Croatia deserve. Ahead of Euro 2016, he said: “No-one in Europe today has better players than Croatia.”

Those world-class players need little introduction, particularly to England fans, but their coach still remains a relatively unheralded part of one of the great World Cup stories.

An unremarkable player, Dalic’s biggest achievement before this summer was taking United Arab Emirates club side Al-Ain to the final of the Asian Champions League in 2016.

In 2010, he moved to the Middle East to “live in the desert without my family and prove myself” and was rewarded with the national team job by Croatian football president and 1998 Golden Boot winner Davor Suker in October last year.

Having been an assistant with the Under-21s, he was familiar with many of the players but was considered a short-term fix by the governing body, who could not afford to hire a more high-profile coach like Slaven Bilic or Robert Prosinecki, the former Barcelona midfielder who coached the team in France.

Dalic, who took a pay-cut to accept the job, believed Croatia’s players did not need much coaching and has fostered a relaxed environment. He is known for his warmth and regularly contacts all his players, even those who did not make his final squad.

Before the 3-0 group-stage win over Argentina, he called Luka Modric and Ivan Rakitic together with the three candidates for the final midfield place - Mateo Kovacic, Marcelo Brozovic and Milan Badelj - and “explained what I expected from that player”.

He does not lack authority, though. He started Sime Vrsaljko in the semi-final against England, despite pressure from Atletico Madrid to rest their defender, and he sent home forward Nikola Kalinic for unprofessionalism after the Nigeria game.

Privately, Dalic is said to be frustrated he did not take the decision sooner, but he is a master of learning from his mistakes, as he has shown repeatedly in Russia.

In Pictures | England vs Croatia, World Cup semi-final | 11/07/2018

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Just one example was his decision to introduce Brozovic from the bench in the quarter-final against the hosts after the midfield axis of Modric and Rakitic proved too flimsy. It was a game-changer.

The Croatian football federation has, naturally, invited the Class of ’98 to the final and, whatever the result, when Dalic and his players meet their heroes on Sunday night, they will have already surpassed them as the biggest source of inspiration for generations to come.

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