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EURO 2008: Life goes on for departing Kovač

/noticias.info/ Croatia's outgoing captain Niko Kovač feels he and his team-mates can only blame themselves for failing to wrap up their quarter-final with Turkey after Ivan Klasnić had given them a 1-0 lead with a minute to go in extra time.

Late drama
That goal looked to have settled a tight encounter, but once again Turkey dug deep to produce some last-gasp drama. Having beaten Switzerland and the Czech Republic with late efforts in their previous two outings, Fatih Terim's men forced the match into penalties when Semih Şentürk thundered the ball past Stipe Pletikosa with the final kick. Croatia never looked likely to lift themselves after that and so it proved, Luka Modrić and Ivan Rakitić firing wide from the spot before Mladen Petrić had his effort saved. "We were in the semi-finals but in the last minute we made a mistake," said Kovač. "We went for a second goal when we should have tried to hold the ball or kick it into the corner. We got that wrong, there was a long ball and suddenly it was 1-1. That's football, but we're very disappointed."

'Life goes on'
The 36-year-old has now retired from the international arena as he indicated he would if Croatia lost, but still feels he should have been on the winning side. "We knew they had a good team and a strong team, but over the course of the match we had the better chances," he added. "They had one shot on goal. Now I'm ready to go, but the young players will have a new chance in two years, four years, six and eight years. Let's see what Croatia can go on and do. It's nice to be here, but it's finished [for me] and the show must go on. I said to the young players that tomorrow is another day. They're disappointed and some were crying but that's normal. Life goes on."

Reassuring words
Many of the younger players were too stunned to speak with the press afterwards, but another old hand – centre-back Josip Šimunić – revealed that Croatian primer minister Ivo Sanader had visited the team in their dressing room following the loss. "He congratulated us, said we should hold our heads up high and that we'd done the nation proud," explained the 30-year-old. "He said we should look forward to the future and not think about what happened because what's done is done." Despite his experience, though, Šimunić admitted it would be difficult to take the premier's advice. "I'm feeling very, very empty," he said. "I can't really explain it – I guess it just wasn't meant to be tonight." notas_de_prensa_archivo