By After coming back from 1-0 against England in the World Cup semi-final last night Croatian players seem to have decided that defeating them in extra time was not painful enough and have added an extra kick to the gut in their post match interviews.
The team's star player Luka Modrić criticised the English press, who have definitely not got carried away with the whimsical idea that football might be returning home.
“People were talking… English journalists, pundits from television,” Modrić told ITV. “They underestimated Croatia tonight and that was a huge mistake. All these words from them we take, we were reading and we were saying: ‘OK, today we will see who will be tired.’ They should be more humble and respect their opponents more.”
“We showed again that we were not tired – we dominated the game mentally and physically.”
“We should have killed the game even before extra time,” he added.
Nice and humble, that.
The Real Madrid players comments come after England manager Gareth Southgate showed grace in defeat by congratulating the Croatian team on the pitch and embracing Modrić at the end of the game.
His team member Sime Vrsaljko stuck the knife in further and criticised the notion that England had changed their style of play in this tournament.
“The all-round perception was that this is a new-look England who have changed their ways of punting long balls upfield but when we pressed them it turned out that they haven’t,” he said after the game.
Croatia centre-back Vedran Ćorluka added to the war of words when he was asked to stop by English press after the game and smiling said "It's not coming home" before walking off.
Wishing France all the best this Sunday.
