Croatia can deal with Kane after ‘stopping Messi’

Croatia coach Zlatko Dalic said that since his side has already been capable of stopping Lionel Messi, they can definitely cope with Harry Kane when they meet England in the semifinal.

Croatia handed Lionel Messi’s Argentina a heavy 3-0 hammering during the Group D matchup as Dalic’s team ran the game by dominating midfield. Messi became an isolated figure in the match, barely seeing the ball as Modric and Rakitic worked hard to to block passes to the Argentine playmaker. Messi never really got going at this World Cup, scoring just once in the entire tournament (against Nigeria) and providing two assists in their 4-2 defeat to France in the Round of 16.

Kane meanwhile is the top-scorer at this World Cup, bagging six goals. "He [Kane] is top scorer - he's not easy to stop. But we have top centre-backs. We managed to stop Messi and [Christian] Eriksen so hopefully we can stop Kane,” Dalic said in a press conference.

He highlighted England’s set-piece achievements and said that England does not have any glaring weaknesses.

“I don't think England had easy opponents, they made it look easy. That is a big difference. They are young and have a lot of talent. They play with great speed and aggression and are very dangerous from set pieces. England have no real weakness."

The coach admitted that there is a physical challenge that his squad needed to overcome, especially since both their last two games went into extra-time before being decided by penalties.

"In the last couple of days we played two games that lasted 120 minutes so we are very exhausted," Dalic said.

This is the second time that Croatia have made it to the semifinals of the World Cup and having emulated the 1998 side that achieved the same feat, they can now go on and achieve something bigger. Dalic felt that it was no surprise that Croatia made it so far.

"This is a dream come true for us. The big guys were sent home and the working teams stayed. And I don't see why it would be a surprise that Croatia went this far because we have great players."