SPLIT, Croatia, Feb 5 - Croatia will be aiming to
end their winless home record in Split when they take on fellow
Euro 2008 finalists the Netherlands in a friendly on Wednesday.
Croatia have drawn six and lost two matches in the Adriatic
city since they gained independence from the former Yugoslavia
in 1991 and their last outing in the popular tourist resort was
a 1-1 draw with Brazil in 2005.
Coach Slaven Bilic believes the time has come for Croatia to
give fans in his hometown something to cheer about.
"We are delighted to be back here playing one of the
strongest European teams and I think this match is in the same
bracket with the one against Brazil in terms of crowd-pulling
and quality," Bilic told reporters.
"We will take it as a competitive qualifier, meaning that we
will be looking for a good performance and a win," he said.
Bilic maintains it is time to move on after Croatia's
impressive 3-2 win over England at Wembley in November.
"It's our first gathering since the Wembley feat and that
was a while back. There is no living on past merits in football
and what happened belongs to history books.
"We need to repeat performances at that level as often as
possible and Wednesday's match is an ideal opportunity."
While Croatia will be at full strength, the Netherlands will
miss strikers Ruud van Nistelrooy and Robin van Persie as well
as winger Arjen Robben through injury.
Van Nistelrooy picked up an ankle blow in Real Madrid's 2-0
defeat to Spanish Primera Liga rivals Almeria on Saturday while
Robben and van Persie are long-term casualties.
Dutch coach Marco van Basten, who left Liverpool striker
Dirk Kuyt out of his 21-man squad, is likely to field Ajax
Amsterdam hitman Klaas Jan Huntelaar on his own up front.
AZ Alkmaar defender David Mendes da Silva has been added to
the squad after full back Andre Ooijer failed a medical test on
Monday with a slight groin injury.
Midfielders Orlando Engelaar (knee) and Clarence Seedorf
(ankle) also pulled out of the squad injured but have not been
replaced.
Even with a depleted squad, playmaker Rafael van der Vaart
said playing a friendly was useful.
"It is always okay to play with the Dutch team and during a
tournament players also can get injured" he told NOS-TV.
Possible teams:
Croatia: Stipe Pletikosa; Vedran Corluka, Robert Kovac,
Dario Simic, Josip Simunic; Niko Kovac, Luka Modric, Ivan
Rakitic (or Darijo Srna), Niko Kranjcar; Eduardo da Silva,
Mladen Petric
Netherlands: Edwin van der Sar; Mario Melchiot, John
Heitinga, Joris Mathijsen, Wilfred Bouma; Rafael van der Vaart,
Denny Landzaat, Wesley Sneijder, Giovanni van Bronckhorst, Ryan
Babel; Klaas Jan Huntelaar
(Writing by Zoran Milosavljevic in Belgrade; additional
reporting by Theo Ruizenaar in Amsterdam; editing by Alison
Wildey)