What. A. Night.
A few hours after Croatia’s dramatic victory over Russia in the quarterfinals of the World Cup, Croatian songs serenaded Fišt stadium in Sochi, reports Gol.hr on July 8, 2018.
Croatia’s placement into the World Cup semifinals was fiercely celebrated by the Croatia team and staff, who sang, jumped, and danced on tables; bonkers ensued in every corner of the stadium.
“Zovi, samo zovi, svi će sokolovi za te život dati,” Croatia players screamed at the top of their lungs in the locker room. They also sang Čavoglave, Moja Domovina, Lijepa li si, and many of Grdović’s hits.
Our Croatian football heroes have finally reached the success of the Bronze generation in 1998 – and after a 20-year wait, Croatia is in the World Cup semifinals.
Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović visited Croatia’s dressing room and celebrated their unbelievable win.
“This was for the whole nation, we love to complicate things, but in the end, we deserved to win,” said Dejan Lovren after another great performance.
“Now we need to take advantage of the fact that we are relieved. We have to show that we can do better, and now we have nothing to lose,” Lovren added.
Marijo Mandžukić, who assisted Andrej Kramarić for Croatia’s first goal, was excellent in both the offense and defense.
“It was difficult and we knew it would be difficult. But what we care about is that we are in the semifinals. We earned our place on the field, by pushing and playing,” Mandžukić said, adding that his stomach still has butterflies.
“It was the same today as it was against Denmark, there was a lot of nervousness, but it doesn’t matter, we are in the semifinals and all of Croatia is celebrating,” the Juventus striker said.
When asked how he had the power to continue all 120 minutes, Mandžo laughed.
“I do not know, I remember one of the staff member telling me before the championship that this is not the old Mandžukić. I agree with him. This is an even better Mandžukić, I have no idea where it came from. I’m doing my best for the team.”
