England produced a 7-0 demolition of Croatia on Saturday, a Nations League result so complete that Luka Modric admitted he felt ashamed after a game for the first time in 20 years, while Thomas Tuchel spoke of the need to move on from past pain.
The scoreline arrived in unusual surroundings. The fixture was played behind effectively closed doors, with 6,403 spectators inside, the vast majority of them local children admitted free of charge. Their access stood in place of the sanction earned by the previous misbehaviour of Croatia’s senior supporters, and for a young crowd with little to cheer it became almost certainly one of the more harrowing days of their lives as the home side went 5-0, 6-0 and finally 7-0 down.
Modric made no attempt to disguise the scale of the collapse. The Croatia captain said it was difficult to find an explanation for a performance without duels, fouls, aggressiveness or togetherness, adding that after 20 years he felt ashamed for the first time. “You can’t play football like that; we looked like we had four or five players less,” he said. “Losing like this and squandering the reputation we’ve built over the years is unacceptable. It was a catastrophic night.”
Croatia were found wanting in every department and England were superior in all of theirs. Tuchel, who alluded to a semi-final in Atlanta, framed the outcome as a step forward. “To win this dominant performance is the way to move on,” he said. “We’ll always have a scar, feel pain, but this is the way to move forward.” Some commentators went as far as calling it England’s stand-out display under the German, although there was a counter-argument that, given the stakes, the team’s backs-to-the-wall victory over Mexico at the Geopolitics World Cup ranked higher.
The win came at a cost. Alex Scott aggravated a thigh problem he had picked up before the Croatia game, and the Bournemouth midfielder has now left the England squad, with an expected absence of two months. Tuchel said he was very sad about the setback and insisted no risks had been taken, noting that Scott had trained in full before the match and done extra work after sessions, with only green lights coming from the player and the medics before the scan. It is not the first time in recent months that his side has been so risk-averse at a significant cost.
Attention now turns to Tuesday night, when Croatia’s next appointment comes against world champions Spain.