Southgate and Henderson preview Croatia

Kane has caused Lovren problems in the Premier league

This has been key in winning penalties, which Kane has duly and confidently dispatched, and if England can start to find their main talent from open play then this fantastic World Cup run could just get that little bit sweeter.

"But we enjoy to play against big teams, as we showed against Argentina, and have nothing to lose". It will be another very tough match for us, a great challenge.

"We believed in its potential, and I think the games that we've prepared for, we had belief we would win, but there is still pressure in all of those matches, so I'm really pleased with how the team have emerged and developed".

"They have been prepared to park their club rivalries at the door", Southgate said.

Croatia are certainly a step up from Tunisia, Panama, Colombia - without James Rodríguez - and Sweden, while England's tie against Belgium was a meeting of two second strings.

In their quarter-final clash with Russia, the Croats showed a different side, being willing to slug it out with the Russians for 120 minutes before keeping their cool and winning the shootout in such a partisan atmosphere.

Tottenham midfielder Eric Dier knows England must keep Luka Modric silent in their World Cup semifinal against Croatia.

Modric started that match at Wembley and remains integral to Croatia's game 11 years later, the captain having been widely hailed as one of the best players at the finals in Russian Federation.

The captain was the man of the match again in the penalty shootout win over Russian Federation in Sochi at the weekend.

Croatia lost to hosts France in the semi-finals 20 years ago in what was their first World Cup as an independent nation, going on to beat the Netherlands in the third-place play-off.

France, Belgium Clash In Mouth-Watering Semi-Final Matchup
Even though France has a young team, they also have a very experienced player on the team, the goalkeeper , Hugo Lloris . It is a tactic that has become a hallmark of both Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur over the last two years.

While many outsiders view that unexpected Croatian run to the last four as a great success, inside the country many share the view of the team's then manager Miroslav Blazevic that it was a missed opportunity.

"There is still a lot to play".

Croatia, on the other hand, did not have easy wins this World Cup.

Croatia have needed penalty shoot-outs to overcome Denmark and Russian Federation in the knockout stage.

"This is already big, but we can do more".

Goalkeeper Danijel Subasic soldiered on against Russian Federation despite hurting a hamstring, while right-back Sime Vrsaljko is expected to miss the game.

And Southgate had his England players warming up for today's training session by playing a possession game of "keep the chicken".

Perhaps even more significantly, most of the team have been together for a decade but are peaking now and brimming with motivation for their first semi-final since 1998.

If Vrsaljko is ruled out then Dalic has two options, either bringing in specialist right-back Tin Jedvaj, who played against Iceland, or the more probable option of moving Domagoj Vida to right-back and bringing in the experienced Vedran Corluka to pair Dejan Lovren at centre back.

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