World Cup 2018: England's 'warriors' have all they need to go all the way says Davor Suker

Suker believes this young Three Lions team, moulded by Gareth Southgate, is different

Davor Suker pondered the question. Now that Germany, Argentina, Portugal and Spain are out, could England reach the World Cup final?

“I wish England all the best because you are World Cup winners,” said the man who won the Golden Boot in France as Croatia made the semi-finals of the 1998 tournament. “You are hungrier for it now, you have a better team than you had before. You have the shirts, you have the flags and you have 11 warriors. That you need to have.”

Suker, who is now the president of the Croatian FA, spent three years in London, playing for Arsenal and West Ham. He knows the problems of the English game, too many matches, too much money. However, this young team, moulded by Gareth Southgate, is, he feels, different from the rest.

“I have said so many times that in England you have too many games. You are squeezing the players like a lime,” he said. “I know the money is very important but you have the League Cup, the FA Cup, international friendly games, extra-time games. There are so many.

Suker was topscorer in 1998 (Getty)

“Now when I see the England players it is not about how much you earn per week, it is about badges and flags and that seems to be more important. That is why you can be confident of your team now. I wish you well to beat Colombia.”

Of all the teams left in the bottom half of the draw, only England have won a World Cup and that was so long ago and so shrouded in myth that it has often seemed a deadweight rather than an inspiration.

However, should England get past Colombia in Moscow on Tuesday night, Croatia seem the only serious obstacle in their path, their likeliest semi-final opponents in the Luzhniki on July 11.

However, as Suker had just seen, when Croatia were dragged to a penalty shoot-out against a Denmark side whose most potent weapon appeared to be the long throw, delivered by Ipswich Town’s Jonas Knudsen, this has not been a tournament for favourites. Too many have gone out already.

“Germany, Argentina and now Spain have gone and that is good for football,” he said. “There are a lot of reasons why. Pre-season is not nice and they don’t prepare the players very well. If you go into the Champions League, there are a lot of games, a lot of distance to fly and maybe your club hasn’t chosen a very good hotel. It is not easy now being a footballer, playing 80 games, having all that travel and coming to the end of a league season.”

There have been few footballers in Russia who have suffered a longer season than Luka Modric, whose last game for Real Madrid was the Champions League final against Liverpool in Kiev. He also had to fly back to Croatia to testify in a corruption trial against Zdravko Mamic, who ran Dinamo Zagreb and who is alleged to have taken cuts of transfer fees for both Modric and Liverpool’s Dejan Lovren.

Croatia are through to the last eight (AFP/Getty Images)

Mentally, physically, emotionally, the captain of Croatia should have been wrung out before he even arrived in Russia. Instead, after seeing his penalty saved by Kasper Schmeichel, Modric stepped up to take Croatia’s third of an error-prone, desperately nervous shoot-out. He scored, although had Schmeichel, who saved three penalties and still ended up on the losing side, stayed exactly where he was, he would have saved it.

“Modric failed in his penalty but what I saw afterwards was all the Croatian players around him, supporting him,” said Suker. “Trust me, after this Luka will be the best player in the World Cup. This will make him outstanding in the next game against Russia. He will be a bigger, stronger player for what happened.”

Suker was delighted to see Croatia edge past Denmark (Getty)

However, in the same stadium in Nizhny Novgorod where they dismantled Argentina in the group stages, Croatia stuttered. Ten years ago, in Euro 2008, they had beaten Germany in the group stages and faced a quarter-final with Turkey in Vienna that they should have won easily. It went to penalties and Croatia blew it. This was almost a repetition.

“I think if you concede a goal in the first few minutes, it makes it difficult for you,” said Suker. “Look, I have played football and I know that sometimes you can underestimate a team. Mario Mandzukic scored a nice goal but for the next 112 minutes I saw two teams suffering.

“I think today was very important for them. They needed to play well, they needed to play nice football but they also needed to pass through to the next round. Croatia is a country of, what, four and a half million we have qualified for ten championships and you need to respect us. We can take on world champions and we can beat them. We have the players to do that.”