And what’s worth noting is that Croatia have won without some of the veterans who didn’t make themselves available this year.

Nikola Vujcic, Dalibor Bagaric, Gordan Giricek and Andrija Zizic all declined.

“Now our first opponents will be Israel,” Repesa said. “And that was big.”

As for Spain?

“Losing was a possibility because we are not invincible,” admitted Rodriguez. “Now, we have to work at the small details to improve. In the next round, we expect to get the most number of victories.”