One of the great cliches of international football requires updating. Never write off the Germans? It transpires there are times you can. But, long after they went out in the group stage in successive World Cups, a lesson of the 2018 and 2022 is to never write off the Croatians. They feel the hardest team to kill off. Denmark, Russia and England all led against Croatia in the knockout stages of the 2018 World Cup. They all ended up defeated. Japan followed suit in Qatar.
Croatia still have not won a World Cup knockout tie in 90 minutes since 1998. They nevertheless reached the final four years ago and are in the quarter-final now. They have a staying power that extends beyond Luka Modric’s extraordinary haul of 159 caps or his 16-year international career. If football is a 90-minute game, Croatia have the capacity to survive 120, the blend of skill and nerve to prevail on penalties after that.
