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Cape Town - Croatia captain Luka Modric had some harsh words for the English media telling them to "be more humble" after his side's historic 2-1 semi-final win.
READ: As it happened: Croatia 2-1 England
Croatia reached the World Cup final for the first time in their history, after Mario Mandzukic's extra-time winner prolonged England's suffering in major tournaments and set up a decider against France.
After coming through two penalty shoot-out victories over Denmark and Russia - Croatia were expected to tire against England. But instead as the game wore on it was the English who seemed to show fatigue.
"We proved everything differently that people were saying, especially English journalists, pundits from television, they underestimated Croatia tonight and that was a huge mistake," said Modric.
"All these words from them we take, we were reading and we were saying 'OK, today we will see who will be tired' and like I said, they should be more humble and respect more their opponents.
"We showed against them we were not tired, we dominated the game, physically, mentally in all aspects, we should have killed the game before extra time. It's an amazing achievement for us, it's a dream come true after such a long time. The biggest success in Croatian history, in sport, we have to be proud.
"I would say one of the best [moments in my career], if not the best. Hopefully if we manage to win the final then it’s going to be for sure by far the best."
Modric's team fell behind in just the fifth minute to Kieran Trippier's superb free-kick but hit back through Ivan Perisic and Mandzukic to win a tense contest in front of 78 000 spectators in the Luzhniki Stadium.
In beating Gareth Southgate's young team, Croatia - a country of just four million people - have surpassed the achievements of the heroes of 1998, who reached the semi-finals in France.
