Croatia national team football coach Zlatko Dalić has chosen the players he will lead in preparations for the World Cup in Russia.
May 21, 2018 - Over the weekend, most national football championships ended, meaning footballers from all over the world will soon gather with their national teams to prepare for the 2018 World Cup. With that said, this Saturday, May 26, the Croatian national team will meet in Zagreb before heading to Rovinj for their first part of preparations. Zlatko Dalić announced the news at a press conference this afternoon at Zagreb's Pivana, where he also confirmed an updated list of 24 players he will lead in World Cup preparations.
Of the 32 candidates from the original list, eight of them were eliminated (Letica, Barišić, Nižić, Sosa, Rog, Pašalić, Čop and Santini) and 24 players will be nominated for the race to the World Cup.
Dalić's final list of 23 players for the actual tournament in Russia must be turned into FIFA no later than June 4th. After that, it is possible to replace injured players up to 24 hours before the first match is played by Croatia, which is on June 16 against Nigeria. The injured player may also be replaced by a player who was not on the initial lineup.
Here is the list of 24 players Dalić will lead in preparations for the World Cup in Russia this summer.
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Goalkeepers: Danijel Subašić, Lovre Kalinić, Domagoj Livaković
Defenders: Šime Vrsaljko, Vedran Ćorluka, Dejan Lovren, Domagoj Vida, Tin Jedvaj, Ivan Strinić, Josip Pivarić, Matej Mitrović, Duje Ćaleta-Car
Midfielders: Luka Modrić, Ivan Rakitić, Milan Badelj, Mateo Kovačić, Marcelo Brozović, Filip Bradarić
Forwards: Mario Mandžukić, Andrej Kramarić, Nikola Kalinić, Ivan Perišić, Marko Pjaca, Ante Rebić
The Croatia national team will meet on May 26 in Zagreb before heading to their first part of the preparations in Rovinj. On June 2, the national team will travel to Liverpool for a friendly against Brazil, after which they will continue preparations in Opatija and at the HNK Rijeka stadium (Rujevica). On June 7, the team will travel to Slavonia and precisely Vukovar to train for the match against Senegal (June 8 in Osijek). And finally, the team goes to Russia on June 11th.
We can only hope that the preparations will end without injuries and that all 23 World Cup players will be fit after the scheduled friendlies.
Source: HNS
