Croatia (foto: Getty Images)
Croatia's World Cup exit marks the end of a remarkable era, with a new coach, a younger squad and difficult decisions awaiting one of football's greatest overachievers.
Spremljajte Nogomanio kot prednostni vir na Googlu
Dodajte Nogomanio med priljubjene vire v Google News in
prejemajte najpomembnejše nogometne novice med prvimi.
Comment: Every great football story eventually reaches its final chapter. For Croatia, that moment arrived when referee Espen Eskås blew the final whistle after an exhausting 105 minutes against Portugal. The World Cup campaign ended, but something much bigger ended with it.
An era is over.
Luka Modrić's World Cup journey has almost certainly come to an end. The same appears true for head coach Zlatko Dalić, although immediately after the match, he was not prepared to confirm his future.
"What comes after the World Cup? I have no comment. We'll talk about that later," Dalić said.
He did, however, acknowledge what everyone already knows.
"This national team has its senators, but younger players are coming, and it is time for them to take the leading roles."
Those words perfectly describe Croatia's biggest challenge.
The squad that travelled to the World Cup had an average age of 28.4 years, making it the tournament's ninth-oldest team. Seven players were already over the age of 30, including Dominik Livaković, Mateo Kovačić, Mario Pašalić, Luka Modrić, Ivan Perišić, Andrej Kramarić and Ante Budimir.
Another group of key players, including Marin Pongračić, Martin Erlić, Duje Ćaleta-Car, Kristijan Jakić, Nikola Vlašić and Petar Musa, are approaching 30.
At the other end of the spectrum, there were relatively few young players ready to take over. The youngest member of the squad was 19-year-old defender Luka Vušković, followed by Petar Sučić, Luka Sučić, Martin Baturina and the unfortunate Igor Matanović, whose disallowed extra-time goal against Portugal became one of the tournament's cruelest moments.
Looking back, Croatia perhaps delayed the transition for too long.
That is understandable.
When a generation delivers a World Cup silver medal in 2018 and bronze in 2022, there is every temptation to trust those same players for one more tournament. But international football rarely waits for perfect timing.
The reality is even more difficult for a country with fewer than four million people.
Croatia continues to produce outstanding footballers through academies such as Dinamo Zagreb and Hajduk Split, but no nation of that size can continually replace legends like Modrić, Kovačić or Perišić. Before them came Ivan Rakitić, Mario Mandžukić, Dejan Lovren and Marcelo Brozović. Football history simply does not produce players of that calibre every generation.
Throughout this World Cup, Croatia relied heavily on experience.
There were moments when that experience still carried them. Victories over Panama and Ghana showed the resilience, determination, and character that have defined Croatian football for years.
But there were also warning signs.
England overwhelmed Croatia after half-time in the opening match. Portugal exposed many of the same weaknesses in the Round of 16. Croatia fought until the end, and there will always be debate about the decisive penalty, but the broader picture was impossible to ignore.
This was no longer the Croatia that conquered the world between 2018 and 2022.
The quality was slightly lower. The energy was different. Above all, the squad lacked the extraordinary individuals capable of deciding the biggest matches on their own.
That does not represent failure.
If anything, Croatia's achievements over the past eight years were extraordinary. A nation of fewer than four million people reached one World Cup final, won another bronze medal, and remained among football's elite for almost a decade. Those accomplishments were exceptional by any standard.
Croatia has faced this situation before. After the 2002 World Cup, the heroes of the famous 1998 generation gradually departed, and the transition proved difficult. Smaller football nations rarely enjoy seamless generational change.
Now history repeats itself.
The Croatian Football Federation must appoint a new coach, accelerate the development of its next generation and build another competitive national team around emerging talent.
Replacing Luka Modrić is impossible. The objective is not to find another Modrić, because footballers like him appear perhaps once in a generation. The objective is to build a new Croatia capable of writing its own story.