The Croatian under-17 football team said goodbye to the World Cup in Qatar with a loss to Uzbekistan after a penalty shootout.
The round of 16 match is over 1:1and in the shootout, the Uzbek players were more successful – 4:3.
Menu Marijan Budimir after the defeat he pointed out:
It’s always difficult when you lose on penalties, especially at younger ages. They are still children, when you see them later crying, it’s hard. I think we played against a good opponent, a great opponent who stopped our chances in the first half and they only had one and scored. Maybe we let them through the middle of the field a little too much. At halftime, we made three changes, changed the way we pressed, we came out much more determined, much firmer, much braver. I think the second half was us who were better, he said for the official website of the Alliance. He added:
It is difficult now with those 17-year-old children. There were also quite a few who did not want to shoot. In the end, kudos to those who shot and kudos to everyone. That cannot detract from the tournament we played. We played a good group stage, passed with seven points. Unfortunately, we didn’t succeed, but I can’t blame my players. They played as much as we could, we did our best. Unfortunately, we really wanted to go far and stay until the end.
Reminded of an important lesson for young players:
It was really nice there, but that’s football. This is one lesson in life. Football disappears at the age of 17. Let’s move on to their growth, their development, their transition to senior football. For them, this is just another station that they will remember better, willingly or unwillingly.’
(www.jabuka.tv | Photo: X/HNS)
