Gabriele Marcotti's daily diary: Slaven Bilic's curious, courageous decision

3. Croatia were, clearly, desperately unlucky against Turkey.  And one can only praise Slaven Bilic for the exceptional job he's done.  But - and here, perhaps, I'm being rather nit-picky - his choice of penalty-takers was, at once, curious and courageous.  Sending up Luka Modric and Ivan Rakitic, twenty-two and twenty respectively, showed immense faith in their ability given their youth.  One would have thought that with veterans such as the Kovac brothers, Ivan Klasnic and Josip Simunic still on the pitch, he might have gone with experience.  Or that, perhaps, he might have used his spare substitution to send on another penalty-taker.

2. Our obsession with dissecting football folk and their personal taste and opinions knows no bounds.  Throughout the tournament, the one thing which stopped Bilic from becoming a universal media darling was his professed appreciation for Croat rocker Marko Perkovic, whose band, Thompson, is overtly nationalistic (and, some say, Fascist).

Now, Rino Gattuso, the Italy midfielder, is coming under fire for saying that, as a Catholic, he was "scandalized" by the idea of gay marriage.  I haven't seen the papers today, but I'm sure that, just as Bilic was taken to task for his musical tate, so too will Gattuso be crucified for holding supposedly "homophobic" views. And I'm sure they'll conveniently omit the context of his statement, which was that same-sex couples shouldn't be married in the church (he said nothing of civil unions or civil weddings or anything like that).  Which, as views go, is no more "homophobic" than that held by hundreds of millions of Roman Catholics and members of other Christian denominations and religions around the world. But, hey, let's not let the facts stand in the way of a good witch-hunt, shall we?

1. I'm running out of words for The Emperor.  Fatih Terim is not only the coolest-looking manager in the competition, he has also achieved the unthinkable.  It was one thing to project Turkey as a potential outsider to advance to the quarterfinals or even, if you were brave, the semifinals.  Quite another that they have done it in this fashion, with so many injuries and suspensions.  Go back and look at his CV, which includes spells at Fiorentina and AC Milan, four Turkish titles and a UEFA Cup with Galatasaray. Doesn't he deserve another crack at the big time?

Comments

[Chong Chee Ming]

Frankly, wasn't that Turkish goal a
refereeing blunder ?

Emre Asik came crashing right on top and
practically disabled two Croatian players,
resulting in the ball bouncing past them
and on to that Semturk's feet.

Shouldn't that have been a foul and Asik
booked ? How could this goal have been
allowed in the first place ?

Turkey are illegitimate semifinalists.
I believe they've used up their nine,
no ten, lives.

[SABİH]

Does the world know that the mother of Rosetti who was the referee of the match between Turkey and Croatia is a Croatian?

[DAVID]

I cannot agree more with Maciek. Terim never even lets his players practice penalties, he just motivates them so well. That`s how his team had won the uefa final.
With so many key players out for the next match, I think Turkeys luck won`t save them against Germany but who knows, they surprise us again and again with their belief and determination.

[MALAC]

Once again...Slaven Bilić is everything but the fascist,he's known over here(Croatia) for his leftish political views...he defined himself in one of our tv-shoes as a modern socialist...The fact that he's been playing Thompson to his guys is really not something you should hold on to...that song that he's played to our heroes has nothing to do with racism,it speaks of the beauty of our country...and is one of the most popular songs in croatia...i personally dislike thompson,but that doesn't mean i don't feel proud when i hear that song and see our boys in their national shirts...every country has it's own ridiculous persons from the world of famous...we have thompson...but that doesn't mean the whole nation is xenophobic....nor the coach of our national team...

thanx and greets from croatia!

[christian]

remember that modric has been the chosen penalty taker for croatia over a period of time and that he showed strength converting that penalty against austria....

[Jonathan da Silva]

His views on swastika forming in the crowd and racism in crowds did not stop the British media sucking up to Bilic. Imagine a British athlete/public figure expressed the same he'd be a pariah. Is it cos TV companies are ignorant? Or choose to be?

Not to mention we never fail to bait Maradona for not admitting what no other footballer would would admit (that he had handled the ball in) but in all the sucking up to Slaven his considered blatent cheating for Blanc to miss a world cup final was not even mentioned.

Indeed the unrepentant forms of Croatian nationalism are pretty sickening to anyone who knows the last 70 odd years of history. Yet BBC and ITV rejoiced in their passion.

On pens experience seems vastly over rated - in almost all aspects of the game. I wish people in football who want to make points about experience etc. would use ummmhh you know data... Penalty takers and ages must be the easiest stat to compile since we counted goals (indeed a pen is either scored or not by one player so no need for dubious goals committee). Why people in football want to make arguments without verifying them is beyond me.

[Maciek]

Hey about young penalty-takers.
Remember the Champions League final: two of the youngest players scored for United- Nani and Anderson (the latter was brought on just to score the pen).

It's not a matter of age, rather one of mental strength- it has in the past been claimed that centre halves take better penalties than strikers (hmmm...Anelka perhaps, ok I know John Terry missed but that's beside the point)

I thinks it's for the manager to decide which one of his players is strong enough to deal with the responsibility- after all he knows them best, and who are we to judge...

[mab]

Sadly and -let me say - easily, you were right about Gattuso's statement, Mr Marcotti! Indeed, some Italian MPs felt obliged to denounce his "homophoby" (right, again), and even to invite Italians to support Spain in the name of civil liberties...

[kashyap muthuswamy]

nice article, as always. i have two issues:
1. If Bilic had been allowed to push a substitution through, it wouldn't have gone to penalties anyway.
2. Surely Bilic (with his earring!) looks way cooler than the avuncular Terim. But none of them beat Scolari in the "cool looks" race.

[Murat Askin]

I am glad that finally some one has credited Turkish players or the coach. All we hear from the media is that next match Turkey will loose. Why not learn from mistakes and give some faith to the Turkish players. I think they have done better than most so far and I am sure that they will continue agains Germany in the semi finals. Turks has got as much chance as Germans. We say in Turkey the ball is round and you newer know where it will end up at the end of the 90 minutes.Regards and good luck to England for world cup.

[Murfmensch]

Ignore the money and the national game is the big time. Nothing captures the imagination more.

It would be strange to zero in on Gattuso, when homophobic chants are defended by fans as "just a part of football."

[deb]

Maybe working on the principle that the natural confidence of youth would overcome the devastating blow of that ridiculous equalizer. admittedly Croatia werent great last night but that goal was so wrong i actually feel depressed. It'll be interesting to see how much of a game Turkey put up against Germany though.
I agree about the rush to pass judgement on every opinion held by, particularly, sportsmen. There is a certain smugness to much English-based journalism which doesnt allow space for different values to exist. Many of the comments regarding nationalism of the Croats are probably made by people with only a sketchy knowledge of the political history of the region. its lazy journalism to equate a liking for a rock song with fascist tendencies; by that token, how many guitar-loving middle-aged English journalists could be described as Enoch-lovers or worse?

[ASadCroat]

I am a journalist from Croatia and i just want to say that you are wrong about Slaven Bilic personally liking "rocker Marko Perkovic, whose band, Thompson, is overtly nationalistic".
Cause, first of all, Thompson is not a band it is his full name. He is called "Marko Perkovic Thompson", and second of all Bilic doesn't listen to his music. The fact is that most of croatian players like M.P. Thompson but not Bilic himself. Third fact is that Thompson's audience is overtly nationalistic, but his music doesn't have anything remotley fascist in it. The most fascist things in his songs are: "you are beautiful (Croatia)- Lijepa li si" and things like that. I think that german newspapers started this untrue rumour.
That is all. Thank you for you time.
P.S. It is a sad thing that Turks who have been in the lead for about 2 minutes in the whole tournament are going to semis and we who practicaly did not loose a game are going home. but that is the mistery of football.

[Onur]

Terim is special not because of his ability on mathematical fomulas of futbol such as 442 352 etc.That would be undermining his talent.
He is an exceptional leader "The Emperor" who can make his players to beileve that they can make the history rather than reading it. And now proven again, he is also perfectly capable to execute a "Mission Impossible" plan :))