Bilic rejected Poland offer

Croatia boss happy staying put after Polish approach

By Jure Bohoric   Last updated: 22nd October 2009   Subscribe to RSS Feed

Bilic rejected Poland offer

Bilic: Staying with Croatia

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Croatia coach Slaven Bilic claims he has rejected the chance to succeed Leo Beenhakker as Poland's head coach.

Experienced Dutchman Beenhakker was sacked last month following a poor World Cup qualifying campaign.

Bilic's Croatia narrowly missed out on a play-off place to Ukraine, but he has no plans to quit his post and move elsewhere.

In fact, Bilic has agreed a two-year extension with Croatia's FA that will see the former West Ham defender stay in charge until 2012.

Bilic admits he was flattered at being offered the chance to succeed Beenhakker, however, he could not consider another post while at the helm of Croatia.

Flattered

"It's surely nice to hear such a thing as Poland is a nice place to work," Bilic told Jutarnji list.

"It's very nice country with a big football tradition - and also in future they will co-host European Championship 2012 with Ukraine.

"But no matter what I really couldn't take this job as I'm too much of a patriot. As long as I'm able to lead Croatia then I'll do so.

"After I will lose my job, only then I will think about another job. I've agreed with Croatia's FA that I'll sign new contract for next two years.

"So I will say thank you Poland and we'll meet again in Euro 2012."

Injuries

Bilic has bemoaned his team's qualifying campaign, stating being without a number of key players for crucial matches crippled their chances of success.

"Everybody, who followed our group, knew what's going on. From game one we had so many problems, our key players were injured," he added.

"Every time we missed four or five of our biggest stars, from Eduardo to Petric to Kranjcar and Modric.

"Our game against Belarus was the only one that we were at full strength. That was our best game."