Dejan Lovren believes Croatia showed the world – including former team-mate Mohamed Salah – they were not lucky at Russia 2018 by returning to the World Cup quarter-finals on Monday.
Croatia reached the final of the previous tournament, losing 4-2 to France, although they had to go through penalty shoot-outs against Denmark and Russia, then extra time against England.
Lovren and his team-mates advanced to the last eight at Qatar 2022 by defeating Japan, again relying on spot-kicks as Dominik Livakovic made three saves in a 3-1 shoot-out success.
Despite the nature of the victory, the centre-back felt his side had proven a point.
How? Why? Maybe it is written in the stars that Croatia need to go like this, Lovren said. We need to suffer. Without suffe…