Croatia Faces Tough Opening Match Against England
Zlatko Dalic did not bother dressing it up. Croatia’s World Cup summer, he knows, could be decided before it has even begun.
An opening game against England in Dallas on 17 June is hardly the gentle introduction a patched‑up, short‑of‑rhythm squad might have chosen. Croatia edged Slovenia 2-1 in Varazdin in their final warm-up, but the result could not disguise the questions that trail them across the Atlantic.
A brutal first hurdle
“Maybe, because the first game can destroy everything,” Dalic admitted when asked if he would rather have met England later in the group. The memory of Euro 2024 still stings: a 3-0 defeat to Spain in their first match, and the campaign never recovered. One blow, and the whole structure collapsed.
He has seen the other side of that coin. Croatia opened with a win over Nigeria in 2018 and a draw with Morocco four years later, and both tournaments ended with medals around their necks. When the first step is solid, this team tends to run deep.
Now there is no choice, no softer landing. “We can’t choose anything else now. The first game is the most important game. Against England we’ll fight, try to do our best and try to win.” The equation is simple, the stakes anything but.
Stars short of sharpness
The concern is not talent. It is timing.
Mateo Kovacic and Josip Gvardiol, the Manchester City pair who should form the spine of Dalic’s side, are both working back from injury. Luka Modric, still the heartbeat at 38, scored a gorgeous, trademark finish against Slovenia but did so wearing a protective mask as he recovers from a fractured cheekbone. The technique remains untouched; the match fitness does not.
“Kovacic, Gvardiol and Modric didn’t play much for a long time and they are not in optimal form,” Dalic said. “Especially Kovacic, he hardly played this season and now we need him. It’s not easy and we need time. Gvardiol is now back but I know they are not at the optimal level. We don’t have a big roster and these are some of our most important players.”
For a nation that leans so heavily on its core, those words land heavily. Croatia do not travel with the depth of a France or an England. When the pillars creak, the whole structure feels it.
Old scars, new realities
Dalic knows what it is to hurt England. He was on the touchline in Moscow in 2018 when Croatia came from behind to win their semi-final and send Gareth Southgate’s side home. That night etched itself into English football’s modern psyche.
He refused to play that card. Any notion of lingering trauma, he brushed aside, noting that England have since beaten Croatia twice. This is not a rivalry stuck in the past; the balance has shifted and shifted again.
What he did emphasise was the scale of the challenge ahead. England, he said, arrive with a squad stacked from the Premier League, “a very strong team whose league is the best in the world and who play very offensive, very fast”. They have been in the United States for a week already, based in Miami, fine‑tuning for the heat and travel before heading to Texas.
Croatia, by contrast, must knit together rhythm, recovery and belief on the fly. Dalic knows that matching England will not be enough. “We will have to do something more,” he said.
That is the crux of it. A golden generation is edging toward its final act, its leaders strapped up, short of minutes, yet still carrying a nation’s expectation. One game, against a surging England in the Texan heat, stands in their way.
If the first game can destroy everything, Dalic will trust that it can also ignite one last run.
