“We played a truly awesome game in Zagreb in the first leg, tonight here it was much harder. But it was never important for me who would be our opponents in this playoff, because I was convinced that we would win whoever we played against." Having done the hard work four days ago by winning 4-1 in Zagreb, Dalic’s team finished the job comfortably against the much-improved Greeks who were full of attacking intent and tenacious tackling but lacked creativity up forward. For all the home side's possession and hard work, Croatia came closest to scoring with Ivan Perišić hitting the post in the first half.?️Zlatko Dalić: "I'm proud and honoured to experience all this with these lads. Through football, we wanted to bring some joy to #Croatia. Credit to the players".#BeProud #Croatia #WCQ @EuroQualifiers @FIFAWorldCup #RoadToRussia #Vatreni #ZajednoDoRusije pic.twitter.com/coTRY1ZCIJ
— HNS | CFF (@HNS_CFF) November 12, 2017
Dalic said his team oozed quality and that he had benefited from the work of predecessor Ante Čačić, who was sacked last month after a run of poor results. "I did not have to do much. I mostly talked to my players," he said. "This qualification is also as much down to the previous coach and comes as a result of his work. "We are a very good team and failure to qualify for the World Cup was not an option."#WCQ | FT ??Greece 0-0 Croatia?? (Agg: 1-4) Croatia are headed to the #WorldCup!https://t.co/SpQDWJq93q pic.twitter.com/WyKvnKGDdN
— #WCQ (@FIFAWorldCup) November 12, 2017
Greece boss Michael Skibbe pledged to continue in his role. Despite the deflation of missing out on Russia, their improvement over the qualification campaign gave the German hope. "This is a sad day for us and of course it’s difficult, because we have missed out on the World Cup, but I will stay on here,” Skibbe said. "I'm very happy with the team's progress over the last 14 months. We have played really well overall in 12 matches, unfortunately we had a real below-par performance in Zagreb and we have paid dearly for that."Emotional night for #Croatia head coach Zlatko Dalić and his players at @EthnikiOmada. With a happy end! ?#BeProud #Vatreni #WCQ pic.twitter.com/NyyMh01C8O
— HNS | CFF (@HNS_CFF) November 12, 2017
Skibbe pointed to bad luck with injuries to skipper Vasilis Torosidis, Petros Mantalos and Christos Donis, as well as the controversial suspension of Kostas Manolas for the crucial first leg of the playoff, essentially stripping Greece of four of their top players. "These absences influenced the chemistry of the team, we should not forget that," he said. "Tonight we were excellent and Croatia were average. As I said, we have paid for the mistakes we made in Zagreb, mistakes which you simply can’t make at this level."Παρακολουθήστε ζωντανά την Συνέντευξη Τύπου του Μίκαελ Σκίμπε μετά το τέλος του αγώνα Ελλάδα-Κροατία (0-0).https://t.co/7D9FsZlCpN#GRECRO
— Ethniki Omada (@EthnikiOmada) November 12, 2017