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Croatia boss Zlatko Dalic believes that rising star Josko Gvardiol has done enough to deserve the World Cup’s young player award, succeeding Kylian Mbappe.
Gvardiol scored to help Croatia beat Morocco 2-1 in the third place play-off, also earning the man of the match honour, and will find out tomorrow whether he’s won the tournament’s young player award – Mbappe won it in 2018.
The 20-year-old impressed greatly in the centre of the Croatian defence during the tournament.
“I believe Josko deserves such an award – for me he’s the best,” Dalic said. “He must be in competition for it – usually the forwards are considered for this award, but Josko has proven that defensive players deserve it, and I believe he deserves it.
“Today was a difficult match – Morocco were exhausted, but they put up a great fight until the last minute, they remind me of us four years ago. This was the most emotional match of the World Cup for us – when we heard the referee’s whistle, it was the end of a journey for us.
“We had difficult times, but my players spared no effort, and these are the moments we live for, we work for, we train for. We’re now among the best three in the world – it’s as if we have won the gold.”
Gvardiol himself played down talk of winning the young player award in a short, no-nonsense press conference, where he seemed to get irritated by twice being asked about the semi final against Argentina, and also the famous moment when Lionel Messi escaped him for the third goal during that match.
“The Argentina match is behind us, I would not like to go back to that match,” he said. “We made a comeback – we knew we had to be focused and today’s match proved that we deserved the bronze medal.
“I’m not interested in any such award of the young player. What I care about is the bronze medal. If I get this award, I will be together with the players who received it in the past – if not I will be happy with the bronze medal we won.”
Morocco boss Walid Regragui says his squad should be proud of their achievements at this World Cup, despite losing the third place play-off. At this tournament, his side became the first African side ever to reach the semi finals – even though Morocco hadn’t even reached the last four of the Africa Cup of Nations since 2004.
“Of course the players are disappointed, but when we wake up tomorrow, we’ll realise what we’ve achieved,” he said. “Honestly I would change nothing we did during this World Cup – beforehand we had a 0.01 per cent chance of winning this World Cup, but we managed to get through to the last four, we played against some of the powerhouses.
“We are now one of the top four teams in the world – if you’d told me that beforehand, if you’d said Morocco would be number four in the world, I would have accepted that straight away. We dreamed of getting through the group stage, and we got to the semi finals.
“We have an objective of winning the World Cup one day and we’ve learned a lot – hopefully other African teams look at our example, too. Africans love football, and we’ve shown we can go toe to toe with top teams. Football makes people dream, it makes children dream, it gives them hope. In Morocco, in many countries in the world, we’ve allowed children to dream.
“We’ve set the bar high and expectations from our supporters are going to be high now, but we’ve made a fantastic achievement, and we want to do it again.
“We want to get through the first round every time, reach the last 16 or the quarter finals every time. If we keep doing that, then one day we can win it. Why is it that European teams are always doing it? Because they have experience, they regularly get through, and through that experience you learn.
“We’ve proved it’s possible to go far in this competition with hard work and desire. That needs to set the example for the future, whether it’s Morocco or another African country, so that one day a team can achieve the dream of all Africans.
“I think we’re one of the best ever African generations now because we’ve reached the semi finals, but I’ve told the players that if they want to go down in history, they have to win the Africa Cup of Nations. That would mean they’re the best ever generation in Africa, until someone wins the World Cup. Before you’re king of the world, you need to dominate your continent.”
