Croatia coach Slaven Bilic described playmaker and Tottenham new boy Luka Modric as the best player in Europe following his side's shock Euro 2008 win over Germany - but he insists they are no one-man team. Modric followed up his match-winning penalty against Austria on Sunday with a man-of-the-match performance against Germany on Thursday, helping Croatia to record a 2-1 victory that, combined with Austria's 1-1 draw with Poland, saw them progress to the quarter-finals.
Modric's star is certainly on the rise, and his display against the Germans showed just why Spurs splashed out around £16.5million to sign the 22-year-old from Dinamo Zagreb prior to the European Championships. Bilic is also a huge fan of Modric, believing there is no-one better on the continent, but he was also keen not to undervalue the contributions of his other players.
"Luka is a star even without this tournament, I keep saying to him every day that he is the best player in Europe, but he is not the only great player on our team," Bilic said after the match in Klagenfurt. "We have world-class players, and they prove it day in, day out at every training session, in every match and in every part of the pitch."
Germany boasted the fourth-best defensive record in qualifying, but they struggled to cope with the Croatians, who had a number of other goalscoring opportunities during the match aside from the two they netted.
Modric does not think Germany will be the only team to suffer though, insisting Croatia have the players to cause any side problems. "We're not surprised by the many chances we had, we think we played an excellent match," he said. "We moved a lot and when we do that we are very dangerous and can create many chances against any side, not only German. With that aspect, I am very satisfied."
Regarding the result, Modric added: "We are overjoyed by this win, we started off playing tough, the way we wanted to. "We wanted to exert pressure on our opponents so as not to allow them to develop their own game."
