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“He had problems in every game with injury — too big, just too many of them. Against us at Wembley [in November, when Croatia's victory eliminated England from Euro 2008] you were without Rio Ferdinand, John Terry, even the third-choice Ledley King and also Jamie Carragher retired. Suddenly you don’t have four central defenders and then you lose Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen.

“So a big part of my tactics became that England would play one up front and three in the middle and I wanted to stop the ball getting to Gareth Barry because I knew he would play deepest. I told my strikers to let Joleon Lescott and Sol Campbell have the ball as much as they want — stop Barry, stop Micah Richards and, a little bit less, stop Wayne Bridge. I did that because Campbell and Lescott are defenders but not passers. If Rio and Terry were playing, I would have had to think differently. So I have big sympathy for McClaren.” Only so much, though. The failings of English football have become almost a specialist subject for Bilic.

“I saw you at the European Championship in 2004 and your team was brilliant,” he said. “Should have beaten France, easily beat Switzerland, slaughtered Croatia and you play Portugal in the quarter-finals and you are leading 1-0. And then Wayne Rooney gets injured. And you sit back. And you have been sitting back ever since. I do not understand it. With your players — attack, attack, always attack.

“It was the same against us. You forced us back in the second half and got the score to 2-2 and then as soon as that happened, you let us come at you again. I would not praise myself for that. I did not have to say, ‘Let us go and score a goal.’ You let us play again, just as you knocked yourselves out in Moscow. When you let us come into your half, we are dangerous. I don’t know why you did that.

“So for some of it, you are to blame. I don’t understand why you played Austria four days before such a crucial game. I thought it was disrespectful. You don’t play Austria away before a proper game, the key game. But we didn’t beat you because you didn’t respect us. We beat you because we are better. In the games, the qualification, we were a better team than England. End of story.

“We were better and we still are. It is like the [2006] World Cup [in Germany], when you say England failed because the players’ wives were there too much. No! You didn’t play good. It was on the pitch. That’s the truth and the truth hurts.

“People say the English are arrogant, but it is not arrogance. I understand you completely. You ruled the world for centuries. You are a mighty nation. I tell everybody, ‘If we were like that for one day, we would be ten times worse than the English.’ ”

So, what next for Bilic? First, the European Championship, in which Croatia have every chance of reaching the quarter-finals, perhaps farther. Then he will wait and see. He has not ruled out a tilt at the World Cup and a rematch with England, but if the right club comes along, it may be time for a change. “Money was never my big motivation,” he said. “If I leave, it will not be just for money. It will be a career move.” And, knowing Bilic, a very successful career move, too.

Poor comparison

Slaven Bilic earns £45,000 a year as coach of Croatia, about the same as a quantity surveyor, who would also get a company car, pension and private healthcare

£4.8 million Annual salary of Fabio Capello

£135,000 Weekly wage of John Terry

£120,000 Steven Gerrard

£110,000 Wayne Rooney, Michael Owen

£100,000 Frank Lampard, Rio Ferdinand

£1.1 million Average annual salary of a Premier League player

£110,000 Average annual salary of a GP

£20,133 Starting salary of a newly-qualified teacher

Sources: Times archives, Deloitte, The Information Centre, Training and Development Agency

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