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Croats see off Greeks to secure WCup spot
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Croatia coach Zlatko Dalic heaped praise on his players after they saw off Greece with the minimum of fuss in their playoff tie on Sunday to seal a place at the 2018 World Cup.
The impressive Croatians held Greece to a 0-0 draw at the Georgios Karaiskakis Stadium in Sunday鈥檚 second leg in Piraeus to complete a 4-1 aggregate victory 鈥 making it the fifth time they have qualified for the global showpiece since gaining independence in 1991.
鈥淐ongratulations to my players, it was a great game tonight, full of tension, and we鈥檝e achieved what we had set out to do and are going to Russia,鈥 said Dalic.
鈥淲e played a truly awesome game in Zagreb in the first leg, tonight here it was much harder. But it was never important for me who would be our opponents in this playoff, because I was convinced that we would win whoever we played against.鈥
Having done the hard work four days ago by winning 4-1 in Zagreb, Dalic鈥檚 team finished the job comfortably against the much-improved Greeks who were full of attacking intent and tenacious tackling but lacked creativity up forward.
For all the home side鈥檚 possession and hard work, Croatia came closest to scoring with Ivan Perisic hitting the post in the first half.
Dalic said his team oozed quality and that he had benefited from the work of predecessor Ante Cacic, who was sacked last month after a run of poor results.
鈥淚 did not have to do much. I mostly talked to my players,鈥 he said. 鈥淭his qualification is also as much down to the previous coach and comes as a result of his work.鈥
Greece boss Michael Skibbe pledged to continue in his role. Despite the deflation of missing out on Russia, their improvement over the qualification campaign gave the German hope.
鈥淭his is a sad day for us and of course it鈥檚 difficult, because we have missed out on the World Cup, but I will stay on here,鈥 Skibbe said.
鈥淚鈥檓 very happy with the team鈥檚 progress over the last 14 months. We have played really well overall in 12 matches, unfortunately we had a real below-par performance in Zagreb and we have paid dearly for that.鈥
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