Croatia coach Slaven Bilic described playmaker and
Tottenham new boy Luka Modric as the best player in Europe
following his side's shock Euro 2008 win over Germany - but he
insists they are no one-man team. Modric followed up his
match-winning penalty against Austria on Sunday with a
man-of-the-match performance against Germany on Thursday, helping
Croatia to record a 2-1 victory that, combined with Austria's 1-1
draw with Poland, saw them progress to the
quarter-finals.
Modric's star is certainly on the rise, and his display against
the Germans showed just why Spurs splashed out around £16.5million
to sign the 22-year-old from Dinamo Zagreb prior to the European
Championships. Bilic is also a huge fan of Modric, believing there
is no-one better on the continent, but he was also keen not to
undervalue the contributions of his other players.
"Luka is a star even without this tournament, I keep saying to
him every day that he is the best player in Europe, but he is not
the only great player on our team," Bilic said after the match in
Klagenfurt. "We have world-class players, and they prove it day in,
day out at every training session, in every match and in every part
of the pitch."
Germany boasted the fourth-best defensive record in qualifying,
but they struggled to cope with the Croatians, who had a number of
other goalscoring opportunities during the match aside from the two
they netted.
Modric does not think Germany will be the only team to suffer
though, insisting Croatia have the players to cause any side
problems. "We're not surprised by the many chances we had, we think
we played an excellent match," he said. "We moved a lot and when we
do that we are very dangerous and can create many chances against
any side, not only German. With that aspect, I am very
satisfied."
Regarding the result, Modric added: "We are overjoyed by this
win, we started off playing tough, the way we wanted to. "We wanted
to exert pressure on our opponents so as not to allow them to
develop their own game."
