The Croatia plan came together on the pitch, and it was a cruel little thing, and I loved it.
I stuck one of our kids in a yellow bib and told him he was Modrić. Get on the ball. Boss it. Then I set Sofyan and Boussoufa on him in pairs, hunting him, herding him, never letting him turn, forcing him back the way he did not want to go.
We ran it an hour. By the end the kid in the bib was bent double, hands on knees, blowing hard.
"Encore," I said.
He gawped at me like I had gone soft. Benatia was laughing. "He thinks you are joking, gaffer."
"Tell him Modrić will not be blowing after an hour. Tell him Modrić is 32, played 120 minutes on Sunday, and will still be jogging about when this lad is flat on his back. And tell him that is the whole point."
That evening it was me and Bray and Marcus in the little analysis room the federation had thrown up for us, a laptop and a projector and three cold coffees, taking Croatia apart a frame at a time.
