Originally posted by Yogi[..]
Yeah, I remeber '98. Then our coach Bilic still played for national team. : ))
I learned that nobody expects nothing from Croatia. In '98 nobody expected nothing and we were third. And the fact was that Croats and Dutch were better then France and Brasil.
In qualifications we beat England for the first time...and everybody says...nah, they were lucky. Ok, we beat them for the second time, on Wembley, and still nobody sees us as TOP 5 European team. It's weird...we even beat Italy two times in last two years....
But it seems it will always be this way, and this is what motivates our national team the most...they have to always prove themselves over and over again.
Yesterday...Germany could beat us, they're fantastic team, but we just didn't let them play their game, and when they became nervous, I knew we'll win.
Our coach after the game for BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/euro_2008/7452011.stm
I always forget that you Croatians beated us for the 3th/4th place. Davor Suker still played back then.