Sorely tempted by the West Ham United job but bound by loyalty and contractual complications, Slaven Bilic will just have to get on with coaching the fifth-best nation in world football, a Croatia team going for their third successive competitive victory over England this evening and brimming with all the confidence and technical prowess that Fabio Capello must covet.

It cannot have been easy for Bilic to let the Barclays Premier League's gravy train pass him by and there must be a part of him that fears his stock may never again be so high. But another triumph over England would certainly keep him in the news and, after inflicting calamitous Euro 2008 qualifying defeats on Steve McClaren here and at Wembley, who would dare to bet against this talented squad and its bright, shrewd coach, who only turns 40 tomorrow?

Perhaps benefiting from his relative youth, Bilic has excelled at inspiring his players on the pitch while managing to appear almost matey with them off it. In contrast to Capello's austerity, he has no objection to a player drinking a glass of wine over dinner and he concluded yesterday's press conference by joining a gaggle of players, cigarette in hand, for a chat and a laugh outside the team hotel. As well as ball-retention, Croatia could give England lessons in camaraderie.

Bilic is happy to credit his players for their rise up the rankings - they are ahead of Brazil and Argentina, at six and seven, with England listed at fifteenth by Fifa, the world governing body - but he also believes that his bold selections and two years of perfecting systems have played their part. It was a disappointment only to reach the quarter-finals at Euro 2008, when they were a minute away from beating Turkey but lost on penalties.

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• Zagreb holds no fear for Capello and England

• England must call time on years of hurt

• Bilic's recipe: wine, fags and talent

• Capello has no time for video nasties

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“We're getting much, much better,” Bilic said. “Before the first game [against McClaren's England] we'd had 20 training sessions. Maybe 50 before the second match. Now it is 150. We have a better balance to the team and we are striving now to have 11 players all on the same high level. And if we can do that, we can be the equal of any team in the world.”

While Croatia advance, Bilic struggled to detect where England have progressed under Capello. He does not mean to be rude about his opponents, simply factual about their limitations. “It's really hard for Capello to change a lot with the same players and, more or less, the same system because they have become used to that system with their clubs,” he said. “There are no new faces in the England team and nothing to surprise us.”

His biggest concern is that there are such high expectations on Croatia. To counter that, he has given his players a lesson in Capello's history. “The way people are approaching this game, with us as favourites and that England don't stand a chance, it reminds me of the European Cup final in 1994, Barcelona [coached by Johan Cruyff, with Romário and Hristo Stoitchkov in the team] against Capello's Milan,” Bilic said. “Two weeks before the game they were all saying that Barcelona were going to kill them. It finished 4-0 to AC Milan.

“All I'm saying is that maybe the guys from Barcelona that night were approaching the game on a jolly-up. But me, my staff and my players are nowhere near that approach. We are full of respect for the England team.”

Not so one local paper in Croatia, which showed the England badge with pussy-cats in place of lions yesterday. England appeared to invite such mockery last year when Michael Owen declared that not a single Croatia player would make the England starting XI, although, as Bilic acknowledged yesterday, their success is down to teamwork as much as star performers. “We know that without keeping that organisation, without keeping our system, we are lost,” he said.

Confidence is “sky-high”, as it should be given that Croatia have not lost a competitive fixture at the Maksimir Stadium. “If you don't go there a lot and then play there, you can be overwhelmed by the beauty of the place,” Bilic said, to raucous laughter. The ground is due for demolition some day soon. England already know how intimidating it can be.