From the special reporter "Vijesti".
"It's coming home", the English sing for days, thinking of the World Cup trophy that they won only once - home, in 1966.
"You're going home", the Croats answer them, ahead of the epochal semi-final of the 21st World Cup, on Wednesday, July 11, at the "Lužnjiki" stadium.
Zlatko Dalić and his troops made 150 million Russians cry and marched on Moscow, which was their secret and then increasingly loud wish during the World Cup. They were in Kaliningrad, twice in Nizhny Novgorod, in Rostov-on-Don, and finally in Sochi, they circled the vast country of Russia to buy a ticket for the biggest possible stage - to enter Moscow, the semi-finals, maybe the final...
"We're going to Moscow, it would be a shame to travel around Russia this much and not see the capital and largest city," joked Dalić after one of the biggest victories in the history of Croatian football.
And just half an hour earlier, he was not joking - as if embalmed, crushed by stress and terrible emotions, he was sitting on the bench of the Olympic Stadium "Fišt" in Sochi and experiencing a drama unlike any other coach at this World Cup. It was thought that everything was over, that the "communal command" was finally on its knees, the second overtime leaked when the Brazilian Russian, or Russian Brazilian, Mario Fernandes, flew over the Croatian defense and sent the match into a new drama, a new penalty shootout and another "Russian roulette" for Dalić's selection.
About 40 thousand Russians in Sochi, at least three more in the big fan-zone on Moscow's Vorobyovy Gora, at the foot of the huge building of the Lomonosov University, millions of them in squares, bars, in homes... were in total delirium, and then the great Croatian the goalkeeper, Danijel Subasic, and his teammates, for the second time in six days, showed character and nerves of steel.
Instead of Moscow, Rostov, Samara, Yekaterinburg... the celebration erupted in Zagreb, Split, Zadar, Osijek...
"Vatreni" repeated the success from 1998, when the famous generation of Boban, Šuker, Prosinecki and others played in the semi-finals, and tears flowed down the face of Zlatko Dalić, the true and legitimate successor of Ćir Blažević.
"I started crying from happiness, from the burden, from the pressure, I don't even know from what." I don't cry often, but now I had something to cry about. I always have a difficult path in my life, I always fight for everything", said Dalić, who as a player, in the 1988/89 season, it should be repeated, wore the Podgorica Budućnosti jersey for six months.
Croatia's placement in the semi-finals of the World Cup is absolutely the greatest feat of a national team at the 21st World Cup.
Perhaps, among the four most successful teams, no one expected the English either, but what a league they have - one of the best in the world. What kind of logistics, football infrastructure do they have, and only tradition...
Some did not even expect that the Belgians would go that far, but in terms of individual quality - this is perhaps the best national team in the world.
Croatia also has great footballers in its ranks, Ivan Rakitić leads Barcelona's game, Luka Modrić with four Champions Leagues with Real may have already become the greatest Croatian footballer in history, but Croatia also has a league that is on the margins of Europe, "soccer" intertwined with corruption, football boss sitting in prison...
"Croatia did not lose by chance right at the end of the Mamić era", is one of the headlines in the mountain of euphoric inscriptions in the Croatian media, where one can even find that one Croat threw a couch out the window, celebrating a great victory.
While Croatia celebrates and Russia proudly mourns, the World Cup story reaches its climax.
The round is closed, four teams and two of the biggest and most beautiful cities, the most glamorous stadiums remain - Saint Petersburg and its "Krestovsky" where the semi-finals will be played France - Belgium and the match for third place, and Moscow and the monumental "Luzhnyky", which will be hosting the Croats and the English, and then the grand final.
The French have reached the semi-finals of the World Cup five times, the other three selections only four times in total - the English twice, the Belgians and the Croatians once each.
Whatever happens - history will be written.
"Spasiba, parni - you are our heroes", "the rock" Ignašević said goodbye
"Spasiba, parni" (Thank you guys) - "screams" from the front page of the Moscow "Pravda" after the elimination of home Russia in the quarter-finals of the World Cup.
Many did not give the chosen selection of the "collective command" much of a chance to pass the group, and it almost ended up in the semi-finals, among the four best national teams in the world.
"You are champions in our hearts, thank you for everything, you were a great team", writes the comment of "Sport Express".
Stanislav Salamovič Cherchesov, known as Stas ("You are our cosmos, Stas", it is written all over Russia, even on billboards) led a selection of limited quality players, carried by incredible adrenaline, all the way to the entrance of the semi-finals.
The 54-year-old coach was greeted by applause from Russian journalists at the press conference after the dramatic duel in Sochi.
"We feel like an army that was demobilized before the end of military service," Cherchesov said.
"I don't know if this is more than what we needed to do, it would have been better if we had stayed until July 15. It's true that we didn't have a lot of public trust, but it's also true that no team at the World Cup had XNUMX percent public trust. We believed in us, that's the main thing, and you can't ask anyone to believe in you. We have turned public opinion in our favor, and that is our greatest success. Russia fell in love with us," said Cherchesov.
Russian football players also received public praise from the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin.
"They are still great, they are heroes. They died on the field and we are proud of them," Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov relayed Putin's message.
In the sea of media captions related to the dramatic defeat of Russia against Croatia, the news that the stopper of "Zbornaj" Sergej Nikolaevich Ignašević, known as "the rock", said goodbye to the national team and football in general, at the age of 37, had a notable echo.
"I thought about it before, but the World Cup 'pulled' me, we could have gone all the way to the end. Nevertheless, I am leaving satisfied," said Ignašević, the Russian record holder for the number of appearances in the national team (138).
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