France vs Croatia - Croatian player would STILL get a medal after being sent home

July 14, 2018 By Oscar Rojas

Topics: FIFA World Cup, France, Croatia, Nikola Kalinic, Zlatko Dalic

There's one man included in Croatia's World Cup roster (aside from the goalkeepers) that could be crowned as champion without even being in Russia.

June 16, 2018. Croatia is beating Nigeria thanks to an own goal by Etebo and Luka Modric. Coach Zlatko Dalic calls up Nikola Kalinic to come in with five minutes left to be played, and AC Milan's striker refuses to go in.

One day later, Kalinic makes himself unavailable to train, this time because of a "recurrent back pain", which was according to him, the cause why he refused to play the day before. Coach Dalic investigates a bit further, and decides to kick Kalinic out of the team since he believed Kalinic was faking. Croatia was forced to play the rest of the tournament with only 22 players.

Curiously enough, if Croatia wins the FIFA World Cup title against France, Kalinic would still get a medal. Since FIFA doesn't allow any changes once any team started playing in the competition, Kalinic is still part of the squad, which would earn him the undeserved title of World Champion.

Coach Dalic was asked for his reasons to send Kalinic back home.

"I needed players that were available and fit, and since that was not the case, I took it as calmly as I could and decided to send him home," the coach stated.

Kalinic would make history as the first player to be kicked out of the competition due to disciplinary reasons to still have his name written among those who lift the World Cup title.

The Croatian striker would also join a list of players that have collected a FIFA World Cup medal without playing a single minute, which includes top-caliber names such as Franco Baresi (1982), Daniel Pasarrela (1986) and Ronaldo (1994). Unfortunately, he would go down in history for all the wrong reasons.