Croatia coach Zlatko Dalic says his team will need to be at their disciplined best to contain the menace of Lionel Messi in Tuesday’s FIFA World Cup™ semi-final.
Dalic said Croatia would not man-mark Messi but aim to repeat the defensive approach that limited Neymar’s influence in their quarter-final success against Brazil.
A 4-2 penalty shootout win on Friday following a 1-1 draw after extra time at Education City Stadium secured Croatia a second successive World Cup semi-final appearances.
Neymar gave Brazil the lead in the first half of extra time before Bruno Petkovic’s deflected strike took the game to penalties.
Aside from his goal, Brazil’s talisman otherwise struggled to penetrate the Croatia defence.
Occupying a slightly more central position inside Vinicius Junior on the left, the two players managed just one key pass and five completed dribbles out of 14 between them as Mario Pasalic, Josip Juranovic and Luka Modric worked tirelessly to pressure them.
Life will not get much easier for Croatia in their next game as they face Messi and Argentina.
Dalic said: “We need to guard against Messi, but not in a player-on-player style, as we didn’t [do that] in our last meeting. “We know how much he runs, how much he likes to play with the ball at his feet and the key to our defensive phase will be discipline. If we repeat the same thing as against Brazil, which is that we are close [to him], that we stand by the player, we have nothing to fear.”
Dalic was keen to stress Messi cannot be their sole focus.
“We will make a detailed analysis of [Argentina] because we have not been so focused on them so far,” he said.
“Messi is still their main player, who plays great and carries this national team. They also have some young, talented players and they look very dangerous.
“However, they showed they are vulnerable because they led 2-0 against the Netherlands, and in the end they barely reached penalties at 2-2. It’s up to us to give our best and go into the game one hundred per cent focused.”
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