The Croatian national football team will play against France in the quarter-finals of the UEFA Nations League, the first match as the host on March 20 and the second leg on March 23 next year.
That’s how the quarterfinals of the prestigious European national team competition were drawn. The competition was held at the Uefa Center in Nyon, and the Croatian Football Association was represented by president Marijan Kustić, Croatian coach Zlatko Dalić, general secretary Tomislav Svetina, team manager Iva Olivari, and spokesman Tomislav Pacak.
The Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, Portugal, Italy, and Germany will meet in other quarter-final games.
If they knock out France in the quarter-finals, Croatia will play in the semi-finals with the better team from the match between the Netherlands and Spain. The winners of the quarter-final matches between Denmark and Portugal or Italy and Germany will make up the second semi-final pair.
The first semi-final match will be played on Wednesday, June 4, and the second semi-final match will be played on Thursday, June 5, both from 8:45 p.m. The final will be played on June 8 at 20:45, and the game for third place will be played on the same day but at 15:00.
The decision to host the final of the Nations League will be made by the UEFA Executive Committee later.
The Croatian national football team coach, Zlatko Dalić, commented on the draw of the UEFA Nations League, which brought Croatia to France in the quarterfinals. During his tenure, Croatia played five times against France.
This will be the sixth match against France in the last five, six years. A difficult opponent, but there were no easy ones in this draw. We have two big matches, two big spectacles and a fantastic opponent waiting for us. Of course, we will do everything to get among the top four teams in the Nations League, although it will not be easy. We are playing the first match at home, we will enjoy football and try to get a good result – said Zlatko Dalić, who exchanged a few sentences with the French coach Didier Deschamps at the draw
The president of the Croatian Football Association, Marijan Kustić, was at the draw for the quarter-finals of the UEFA Nations League in Nyon, where Croatia drew France. The first man of Croatian football is convinced that Vatreni can achieve success and advance to the semifinals.
It’s already a big result that we are among the eight best teams in Europe. Whoever we drew, we are talking about strong, respectable teams, but of course we laughed when we drew France, because we have played each other five times so far. They know all about us, we know all about them, but we believe in a good result against France. We are looking forward to March and the home game with France – Kustić pointed out
In the last edition of the Nations League, Croatia performed better mutually than the French, drawing (1:1) at home in Split and winning (1:0) away in Paris.
