Croatia boss Zlatko Dalic didn’t attend FIFA’s the Best awards, claiming that he is being snubbed by FIFA
Croatia boss Zlatko Dalic claims that FIFA showed “a lack of respect” towards him and his team’s achievements. Dalic has led Croatia to a World Cup final and semi-final, achieving the third place in the 2022 World Cup.
Zlatko Dalic believes that if Mateo Kovacic, Josko Gvardiol and Dominic Livakovic were part of a more famous footballing nation, they would have been considered by FIFA in the Best awards.
Dalic bemoans FIFA’s lack of recognition for Croatia
Dalic led Croatia to historic second-place finish in the 2018 World Cup and achieved something similar in the 2022 World Cup as well, where his team reached the semi-finals and got third place.
Scornful of Croatian players being left off voting lists, Dalic said: “If English, Brazilian, Spanish, German or Italian players and coaches had the kind of results that we do, they’d be on the shortlist for every possible football award.
“I want more respect for us, for our national team, for our players, and for myself, because with two medals, we more than deserve it. FIFA should promote the fact that a tiny country such as Croatia can play against the biggest nations in the world because that’s the most beautiful message for the whole football world.”
“we deserve more respect from the head governing body of world football than we have received“
In a contemptuous statement issued through the Croatian FA, Dalic said: “I am disappointed with FIFA’s attitude towards the Croatian national team because I strongly maintain that, based on everything we’ve achieved as a national team, we deserve more respect from the head governing body of world football than we have received.
“We are the only national team that was among the top four teams at both the World Cup in Qatar and in the current UEFA Nations League cycle.
“We made the front pages worldwide by winning a match against the world’s greatest team Brazil, and along with France, we are the only team to have won two medals at the two most recent World Cups.
“This year, we beat France in Paris and Denmark in Copenhagen, we took Brazil and Belgium out of the World Cup. In the 23 matches we’ve played since Euro 2020, we’ve only lost twice. And yet even after all of that, look at the list of the 14 candidates for The Best FIFA Men’s player – aside from the great Luka Modric, where are other Croatian players?”
