Croatia coach Zlatko Dalic congratulates France on their qualification after beating his team on penalties in the UEFA Nations League.
Croatia beat France 2-0 in the first leg of their UEFA Nations League quarter-finals, but France returned the favor 2-0 at home on Sunday, before Les Bleus won on penalties to book their place in the semi-finals.
“I would like to เล่นบาคาร่า UFABET เว็บตรง ค่าคอมสูง congratulate France, they were the better opponent,” Dalic said after the game.
“Our players did their best. It’s not easy to come back to the game after playing three days ago. We didn’t want to be defensive, but they forced us to be like that.”
“We fought as hard as we could, gave it our all, we dragged it to penalties but we were unlucky in that, we missed three penalties.”
Croatia, who lost on penalties to Spain in the final of the last Nations League in 2023, will now instead start their qualifying campaign for the 2026 World Cup in June.
They will go into qualifying Group L with the Czech Republic, Montenegro, the Faroe Islands and Gibraltar, who they will face first on June 6.
“It was a very difficult night for us. We were not able to repeat our performance from the first leg,” admitted Croatia coach Zlatko Dalic.
“It is good experience for us for the future. The aim now is to get to the World Cup and I think we can do it.”
France’s progress to the final stages of the Nations League means they will not begin their World Cup qualifying campaign until September, when they will be in Group D with Ukraine, Iceland and Azerbaijan.