Spurs new boy Modric is Europe's best player, says Croatia boss Bilic

Modric followed up his match-winning penalty against Austria on Sunday with a man-of-the-match performance against Germany yesterday, helping Croatia to record a 2-1 victory that, combined with Austria's 1-1 draw with Poland, saw them progress to the quarter-finals.  

Modric's star is certainly on the rise, and his display against the Germans showed just why Tottenham splashed out around £16.5million to sign the 22-year-old from Dinamo Zagreb prior to the European Championship.  

Star in the making: Luka Modric (right) and Miroslav Klose tussle for the ball

Bilic is also a huge fan of Modric, believing there is no one better on the continent, but he was also keen not to undervalue the contributions of his other players.  

"Luka is a star even without this tournament, I keep saying to him every day that he is the best player in Europe, but he is not the only great player on our team," Bilic said after the match in Klagenfurt.  

"We have world-class players, and they prove it day in, day out at every training session, in every match and in every part of the pitch."  

Croatia took the lead in the Group B encounter thanks to Darijo Srna's 24th-minute strike and doubled their lead through Ivica Olic in the second half before Lukas Podolski pulled a late goal back for the Germans.  

Germany boasted the fourth-best defensive record in qualifying, but they struggled to cope with the Croatians, who had a number of other goalscoring opportunities during the match aside from the two they netted.  

Modric does not think Germany will be the only team to suffer though, insisting Croatia have the players to cause any side problems.  

"We're not surprised by the many chances we had, we think we played an excellent match," he said. "We moved a lot and when we do that we are very dangerous and can create many chances against any side, not only German. With that aspect, I am very satisfied."  

The end: Jens Lehmann (left) and Clemens Fritz ruefully look at the ball after Ivica Olic had struck Croatia's second

Regarding the result, Modric added: "We are overjoyed by this win, we started off playing tough, the way we wanted to. We wanted to exert pressure on our opponents so as not to allow them to develop their own game."  

Germany goalkeeper Jens Lehmann admitted his side under-performed but refused to apportion any individual blame for the defeat.  

"You lose as a team, we didn't play to our full potential, so it's a disappointing day for us because we know we can do better," he said.  

The former Arsenal stopper does believe Croatia enjoyed a huge slice of luck for their second goal, though. The goal stemmed from a Ivan Rakitic cross from the right that took a deflection off Podolski before arrowing towards the net.  

Lehmann, who had begun to come out for the initial cross, managed to dive backwards and get a hand on it, but the ball struck his near post before rebounding back out to Olic, who had the easy task of slotting home.  

"They were lucky on two occasions on that, first of all the deflection, and then I got it but could only deflect it onto the near post, and in between our two defenders there was a Croatian player who just pushed it in, so I think they were quite lucky on that," Lehmann added.