Dalach: England Is a Strong Opponent for Us

The head coach of the Croatian national football team, Zlatko Dalic, shared his views on the results of the group stage draw for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Croatia was placed in Group L and will compete against England, Ghana, and Panama.

"From the first pot, we got one of the strongest teams, our old friends — England. This will be the fifth time I face them as a coach.

Starting our campaign with a match against them is a bit inconvenient for us, as it is a very important and decisive game to begin with. A similar situation occurred during the European Championship, where we narrowly lost to England.

In the last tournament, we lost to Spain. Our performances in European Championships haven’t been great, but we’ve always started World Cups successfully," Dalic said in an interview with the Croatian Football Federation’s website.

"Panama and Ghana are opponents against whom we can showcase a good game and achieve positive results. We will study them thoroughly.

We know our goal is to progress from the group stage. After achieving significant results in the last World Cups, we understand what is expected of us.

However, we will not put unnecessary pressure on ourselves. We will try to enjoy the tournament.

The most crucial thing for us is that over the next six months, our players remain healthy and fully prepared, with no injuries." "Playing against Croatia in the first match is inconvenient for Tuchel as well. He told me that we should have met in the quarterfinals, not in the group stage.

But this is how the draw turned out. Everyone prefers to avoid Croatia because we’ve performed miracles in the last two World Cups.

The positive aspect of the draw is that our first match is on June 17, which gives us enough time to prepare at home and organize two friendly matches for final testing. The cities where we will play are great, especially convenient for our fans.

Now, we need to choose our training camp, prepare thoroughly, and allow our scouts to begin their work." Currently, Croatia is ranked tenth in the FIFA rankings. Read “Zamin” on Telegram!