“I will not apologize.”
Dejan Lovren has delivered an ultimatum to the Croatia national team – either pick him in the starting XI at Euro 2016, or he doesn’t want to be considered for selection for the squad.
The Liverpool defender fell out with Croatia coach Ante Cacic last month, when he reportedly refused to warm-up during the country’s friendly against Hungary.
“I didn’t specifically tell him to warm up, I told all the benched players because it was cold in Budapest. So all of them went to warm up,” Cacic told Croatian media.
“I will not tolerate such behaviour because no one is more important than the team. Lovren made (a) step backward, away from our squad.”
However, rather than offer an apology, and try get back in the coach’s good books in an attempt to secure his place at Euro 2016, Lovren has doubled down and delivered an ultimatum.
“I will not apologize, I will either travel to France as a first XI player or I am not going,” the 26 year old reportedly said.
Lovren also gave his version of events from the Hungary incident, and claimed that he warmed up as he would with Liverpool, but the Croatian coaching team took issue with it.
“I always get angry when the media comes out with half-truths so, to tell you what happened, the conditioning coach came to me and told me to go and warm up for 10 to 15 minutes,” Lovren said.
“I said okay and I started to warm up. After 15 minutes, when I finished warming up, I began to get cold because I didn’t have a jacket so went back to the bench.”
“Then, after a minute, the fitness coach comes again and asks me, ‘So why did you sit on the bench?’ I tell him he said to warm up for 10 to 15 minutes and I did it.”
“Then he immediately said that to Cacic. Look, nobody in the world does not work (after so) long warming up.”
“At Liverpool, when warmed up, we enter the game or after 15 minutes go back to the bench.”
Whether Lovren is right or not seems irrelevant at this point, he may need to significantly row back on his comments if he wants to play at Euro 2016.
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