Canadian national coach is angry and appears naked on the front page


Sunday, November 27, 2022 at 10:31• Tom Rofekamp

A statement by John Herdman has caused a media war between Canada and Croatia. The Canadian national coach said that after the defeat against Belgium (1-0). Les Rouges Croatia ‘had to take it’, which was not appreciated in the Balkan state. Herdman was pictured naked on the front page of a Croatian newspaper, accompanied by a taunt. The Canadian media quickly had an answer ready.

Canada performed well on Wednesday in its first World Cup game since 1986, Herdman also noticed. “I showed the players some numbers from the game and said they belong at this level. And now we’re going to tackle Croatia. It’s that simple, that’s our new mission,” said the 47-year-old coach afterwards. He used ‘the F-word’, without pronouncing it in its entirety.

All of Croatia was white hot and 24sata – the country’s largest newspaper – issued a noteworthy response on Friday. Herdman was depicted naked on the front cover, with his testicles visibly missing. “You have the talk, but do you also have the balls?”, was the accompanying text. Croatian national coach Zlatko Dalic was also scathing about Herdman. “The Canadians should respect us, this statement is not a sign of respect. We are the losing World Cup finalist, we are the number two in the world. We deserve respect for the way we played and for the way we others respect,” spat the lord of choice.

However, the Canadian media was not pleased with the action 24sata, as it turned out on Saturday. On the Saturday edition of the Toronto Sun features the life-sized text ‘Our balls are bigger’, with the cover of the Croatian newspaper in miniature version attached. Which of the two quarrelsomethings is right, we leave in the dark; Croatia is still one point above Canada in Group F. They will battle it out sportively on Sunday at 5 p.m.