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.”
He said the first target for Croatia, who face Nigeria, is to get out of a tricky group that contains Argentina and Iceland, and “after that, anything is possible”. Croatia’s preparations for the tournament have been overshadowed by a court case against Zdravko Mamic, one of the most influential figures in Croatian football, and involving Modric and the Liverpool centre-back Dejan Lovren. Last week Mamic, who denies all charges, was sentenced to six and a half years in jail after being found guilty on a set of charges that included making illegal personal profits on player transfers from Dinamo Zagreb.