The Croatia manager created the situation by creating a fuss over his warm up routine (after being instructed by the fitness coach), criticising Lovren in public and then telling Lovren that he will get game time in the previous game(s) but never did. At the end of the day he's one of their best defenders and should rightly be starting. He obviously doesn't want to travel to France and waste his summer sitting on the bench for the whole tournament when he could be spending time with his family.
I am aware of the situation.
I wonder if the same attitude and approach would apply from you if he was an English Liverpool player a Milner or somebody who demanded he be in the starting 11. There are a very few players in the world who can demand they are in the starting line up and Dejan is not one of them.
Let's talk facts here now he has played one official game of the entire qualifying campaign and that was against Malta in September 2014 the rest he was missing through injury or dropped because of poor form. The other fact is that the coach and the association are a complete joke and a corrupt bunch (one can write a book on this) putting that aside and given Dejan's rough upbringing having to flee the country due to war he should be chomping at the bit to represent his country in any given role or capacity.
In summary I respect him a little less now.
Logged