Croatia’s Luka Modric: ‘It is only right there are great expectations of us’

• Pressure on a high-quality squad to get out of the group stage
• ‘We won’t give up on attacking football,’ Zlatko Dalic says

Croatia enter the World Cup on Saturday, their Golden Generation beginning what is surely a last quest towards making an impact on the greatest stage. The core of the team, Real Madrid’s Luka Modric, Barcelona’s Ivan Rakitic and Juventus’s Mario Mandzukic are in their 30s and unlikely to feature in four years’ time.

The quality of the squad means there is pressure to perform but Modric believes the expectation is justified. “I think we have a very good generation of players,” he said. “We have players at big clubs, they don’t just play there, they’re the driving forces of those clubs. It is only right there are great expectations.”

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