Croatia coach Zlatko Dalic has bemoaned his team’s lack of fire power up front after they fell to a 3-0 defeat to Argentina in the World Cup semi-finals on Tuesday.

South America went up 5-0 after halftime thanks to goals from Lionel Messi (his fifth of the tournament) and Julian Alvarez.

Despite a promising start, Croatia was unable to create many noteworthy scoring opportunities and managed just two shots on goal.

“I congratulate Argentina on the victory,” said Dalic. “We have to pull ourselves together, raise our heads. I can’t blame the boys for anything — we are going into the fight for third place.

“We don’t have much to complain about.

“We have prepared everything but we missed a real, genuine attacker.

“We lost the match, I have nothing to complain about regarding the boys. They gave their best during this whole tournament…. It is a deserved defeat.”