Croatian Coach Calls Brazil Your Turn, But Strengthen His Team Not Underdog

Brazil national team (Instagram.com/@cbf_futebol)

JAKARTA - Croatian coach Zlatko Dalic said Brazil had a "scary" squad but he is optimistic that his team will not be the underdogs in the quarter-final match against Qatar's 2022 World Cup favorites on Friday the day after tomorrow.

Croatia, who is the runner-up for the 2018 World Cup, beat Japan on penalties in the last 16 match on Monday.

The coach said on Tuesday he was proud his team had shown characteristics and mentality so far in Qatar, but he realized Brazil would be a much different opponent.

"Brazil has (more) than 200 million people, our population is only four million, so we are like the outskirts of a city in Brazil," Dalic said.

"This will be a different match than any opponent we have faced before because Brazil likes to play football.

"If we look at it realistically, Brazil is the best team in this tournament, they have a great choice of players, a great squad, it's scary, so it's going to be a huge test for us."

Dalic said fighting Brazil was the best match of the World Cup.

"Maybe we want it more in the final than in the quarter-finals," he added.

"We want to do our best, we will not give up before the game. We want to face Brazil's quality with what we have and we want to play football against them."

Croatia has made a refresh into their national team in the last four years since the previous World Cup, with only a number of veterans remaining, including captain Luca Modric and winger Ivan Perisic.

Dalic said the regeneration should not be compared to the team France lost to in the final in Russia as they mostly consisted of players defending the elite clubs.

"We have achieved historic results after getting silver in 2018 and bronze in 1998, this is Croatia's third best result at the World Cup," Dalic said.

"I'm not going to compare it to the team from 2018, when you look at our players at that time, they played for clubs like Barcelona, Inter, Juventus, Liverpool, Real Madrid of course.

"When you compare it to the current one, we have six players from the first division of Croatia, this is a different team.

"But I commend this generation, because they played so great."

Brazil beat South Korea 4-1 on Monday with one of their best performances in the tournament so far, but Dalic argues his team can put up a fight against the five-placed World Cup.

"Brazil are favorites, you could say they have a very good atmosphere in the team, they have the world's top players, Neymar is back from injury," Dalic said.

"We have to be very smart in our approach. We shouldn't be too open to facing Brazil, but we also shouldn't relax.

"The opportunity is notani, but we are not big underdogs."