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#2 No pressure
Before the start of the 21st World Cup in Russia, Croatia’s odds of winning the World Cup was 30/1. A quarterfinal finish would have been the limit of most forecasts before the commencement of the World Cup.
Croatia came into Group D as the 2nd seed and were expected to finish in 2nd place behind favourites Argentina. They rewrote history by topping group D whilst burying the Argentineans in the process.
A standout characteristic of Dalic’s approach to games is that his teams are very relaxed and they choose when to take control of games. This strategy helps them identify weaknesses in opponents and counter it accordingly. The Eastern European country has a population of just 4 million people making it a small country just trying to express itself in Russia.
They play with so much composure and little fear because they are under no pressure from either the media, fans, neutrals et al. The Croatian team go into arguably the biggest day of their lives with their heads lifted up high.
All the pressure is on their opponents France, who lost the Euros final just 2 years ago. The Croatians will know that the longer the game goes on as a stalemate, the better for them because they have won 2 penalty shootouts in this tournament already.
