Croatia manager refused to vote in ‘The Best’: Blast against FIFA and anger over elimination with Argentina

At The Best gala, Argentine football experienced a historic day. Yes, one more. All the Argentines who were in the running for an award ended up taking it. Lionel Messi was awarded best player, Emiliano Martínez was crowned best goalkeeper, Lionel Scaloni replaced Pep Guardiola and Carlo Ancelotti and was named best coach. As if that weren’t enough, Tula and his hype, representing Argentine fans, also won in their category.

But, logically, not everyone was satisfied with the prizes. The coach of a rival of the Argentine national team at the Qatar 2022 World Cup was the one who raised his voice with a certain tone of anger.

Zlatko Dalić, technical director of the Croatian national team and Argentina’s rival in the semi-finals, has put his all into FIFA. The 56-year-old Bosnian, being the coach of a nation, had among his powers that of voting for The Best awards, but he gave up doing so and with this gesture ignited controversy.

“I am disappointed with FIFA’s attitude towards the Croatian national team. Based on all that we have achieved, we deserve more respect from world football’s governing body than we have received. We are the only team to have been among the top four in the cycle rankings between the World Cup and this League of Nations, we occupy the world front pages, beating the best team in the world, Brazil, and, together with France, we are the only team that has won two medals in the last two World Cups,” he said, in a letter posted on the Croatian Football Federation website.

For his part, Dalic also pointed out what the intersection was Argentina AND Croatia of that December 13, in which Lionel Messi gave an authentic football performance.

“I feel we didn’t get the respect we deserve. Both in the programs we had and with the quality of the refereeing, especially in the semi-finals, they made me feel that they have disrespected the Croatian team. I strongly believe that both of our performances on the pitch and our behavior off it make us worthy of the same respect we show our rivals in every game,” he commented.

Luka Modric, the only candidate

Luka Modric, veteran player of Real Madrid and Croatian emblem, was the only player of this nationality to appear in the list of the best. Of course, in addition to his great presence in the Spanish team, he has enjoyed a World Cup of the highest level. But Dalić felt that there were other players who deserved to be there who weren’t being considered.

“After all this, look at the 14 player list for The Best for the best player. Apart from Luka Modric, where are the other Croatian players? Is there really no room for Mateo Kovacic? Where is Gvardiol’s name” He made the best eleven in both the World Cup and the Bundesliga. And doesn’t Livakovic deserve to be one of the five finalists for best goalkeeper after all he did in Qatar?”, closed the DT.