Zlatko Dalic: Croatia has 'no more room for error' after loss to England

[p]The Croatians ‌battled back twice to level the scores at [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/game/soccer/croatia-K8aznggo/england-j9N9ZNFA/?mid=b5qGuKMs"]2-2[/a] on the stroke of halftime, but were unable to manage a reply to two [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/team/england/j9N9ZNFA/"]England[/a] ‌goals in the second half.[/p][p][a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/dalic-vedran/MeBLK9XD/"]Dalic[/a], who led his country to the 2018 ‌World Cup final and the semi-finals four years ago in ‌Qatar, said it was vital his players rallied quickly for their remaining group matches against [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/team/panama/OWKqbCfi/"]Panama[/a] and [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/team/ghana/nNBjHale/"]Ghana[/a].[/p][image alt="England-Croatia Momentum" id="02a34d5c-b206-4897-9ba1-972e5ff145f2" credit-line="Opta via StatsPerform" guid="ff65da14-fd07-4723-90f0-d6821b9bdf15" original-width="1080" original-height="1080" /][p][b]"It's not easy to lose,"[/b] he told reporters. [b]"You ‌lose your self-confidence, and that's not good.[/b][/p][p][b]"We must ⁠prepare quite well for the ‌next two games in the first stage. It's very important for us to ​be at the right level after this defeat. We do not have the right to any more mistakes.[/b][/p][p][b]"We do ​not have the right to bad matches or mistakes. I wouldn't say that this was a bad match. There were some errors ⁠we committed, some mistakes ​we made. We were punished by our opponent. Two matches are ahead of us, new beginnings."[/b][/p][p]Dalic was particularly scathing of his team's efforts at defending set pieces after two of England's goals followed corners.[/p][p][b]"We ‌used to be quite good at set pieces. We didn't concede goals that easily, and we practised for this opponent. We knew the way England were going to play," [/b]he said.[/p][p][b]"It was disastrous, specifically when it comes to a team like England. About 40% of their goals are from set pieces.[/b][/p][p][b]"We must correct it and must avoid similar mistakes in the future," [/b]he added.[/p][p]Dalic said the team had gained confidence from the goals from [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/musa-petar/2JMpq78N/"]Petar Musa[/a] and [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/baturina-martin/0WWy1lhR/"]‌Martin Baturina[/a] that cancelled out [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/kane-harry/v5HSlEAa/"]Harry Kane[/a]'s first two strikes for ​England.[/p][embed guid="8ce6b950-32d3-4162-bb54-b1f72a1a38d7" url="https://x.com/FCDallas/status/2067373189286510906?s=20" social-type="twitter" /][p]The goal that England's [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/bellingham-jude/QNvlPm7s/"]Jude Bellingham[/a] scored soon after halftime ‌had knocked the stuffing out of his players, however.[/p][p][b]"We had 10 minutes after that, which were really quite bad,"[/b] he said.[/p][p][b]"We tried to get back into the game, but we didn't succeed. It was a strange match. We made a lot ⁠of mistakes, specifically when it ⁠came to the set pieces, ‌but I must congratulate England."[/b][/p]