Luka: We don't need Eduardo

CONSIDERING Slaven Bilic never thought of becoming a coach during his playing days, he has made a pretty good go of it. He was on the board of his hometown club Hajduk Split and only took over on a temporary basis in 2003 when coach Nenad Gracan left. "I liked doing it and I saw that I could do it," he remembered. "Prominent players and coaches told me they could see I was a proper coach."

His first home game in charge of the senior Croatia team, three years later, ended with a 2-0 win over world champions Italy and his team beat England home and away to knock them out of Euro 2008. The Croats were unbeaten for over 18 months under Bilic, the first defeat coming in last month's 3-0 friendly loss at home to Holland.

It is a measure of how highly Bilic is considered by the Croatian media that they were concerned Chelsea would try and sign him after the departure of Jose Mourinho last September: since then, he has been linked with West Ham and last week was offered a two-year deal worth ?5m at SV Hamburg before ruling himself out of the job yesterday. The Croatian FA are desperate to keep him beyond Euro 2008 and will use this week's trip to play Scotland on Wednesday to offer him a lucrative contract extension.

Bilic has turned around the team that left the 2006 World Cup without a win to their name, mainly due to changing the system from a traditional 3-4-1-2 to a 4-2-3-1 formation and promoting three players – Vedran Corluka, Luka Modric and Eduardo – from his Under-21 set-up. "I knew how good that Under-21 team was and I was convinced that they all had great potential."

The Scotland match is the first game Croatia will play since Eduardo, their talismanic striker, was ruled out for the rest of the year after breaking his leg while playing for Arsenal against Birmingham City last month. While his presence gave the team a lethal edge up front – his international record reads 13 goals in 22 games – his absence gives them motivation. "It was a terrible shock," said Ivan Klasnic, one striker in contention to replace him. "We have to pray for him and his return."

Klasnic has had his own, well-publicised, problems: he had a kidney transplant last year (two, in fact, after his body rejected the first kidney donated by his mother but found a better fit with his father's in a second operation) and last played for Croatia 18 months ago. "A return to football, and then to the national team, was always my target during this difficult phase in my life," he said.

The call-up is reward for his three goals for Werder Bremen since returning to action. Rangers and Hannover have been alerted to his form and are monitoring his progress, given that he is out of contract this summer.

But his place in the Croatia side is no given: Ivica Olic and Mladen Petric both scored in the 3-2 win over England and have bagged 21 goals between them in the Bundesliga this season. Borussia Dortmund's top scorer Petric is the first-choice at the moment. "He's good in the air and he has a great feeling for the game," said Bilic after Petric hit four goals in the 7-0 Euro qualifying win over Andorra. "He's patient, strong on the ball, a very modern player. He's not a classic finisher, but he knows how to score and that's what's important." He also happens to share a birthday, January 1, with Davor Suker, Croatia's most successful striker.

It is Modric, though, who in Eduardo's absence is the jewel in Bilic's side. A small, hunched but constantly busy figure, he is the central player in an attacking midfield trident that has Niko Kranjcar on the left and Dario Srna on the right – and is the one irreplaceable player in the squad. Croatians love their No.10s – the 1998 World Cup semi- finalists played with three of them, Robert Prosinecki, Zvonimir Boban and Aljosa Asanovic – and Modric follows in that tradition.

Prosinecki and Asanovic are part of Bilic's backroom staff (along with former goalkeeper from the Euro 96 and World Cup 98 squads, Marjan Mrmic) and Modric has credited them with improving his all-round game. "I have a freer role in the national side but also have more defensive responsibilities."

He still plays at Dinamo Zagreb and the battle for his signature will provide the sideshow to Croatia's Euro 2008 campaign: Dinamo vice-president Zdravko Mamic met Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich last November, while Barcelona and Inter Milan have registered interest in him.

For now, though, Modric is only focused on helping Croatia this week and beyond. "Everyone is asking me about my transfer but I don't want to speak about it," he said. "All I can say is that it will be this summer. I am proud that clubs from England and elsewhere are interested in me but I repeat: I am not thinking about it yet."

Modric claimed that the Eduardo injury has brought an already close group of players even closer. "It will be tough without him because he is a brilliant player – it was his goals that got us to the Euro. But that's why this game against Scotland is important: it's our first game without him, and we need to show that we can replace him, even though that will be hard."

Don't be fooled by the result against Holland. The game was played in February, when five of Croatia's Bundesliga-based players were still having their winter break, while Srna, who plays for Shakhtar Donetsk, had not even begun his season. Bilic himself did not seem to think that the result was such a bad thing, reflecting the press opinion that the occasional unimportant defeat – especially after confidence was so high following the 3-2 November win at Wembley – might bring the players down to earth. Bilic even turned a blind eye to some members of the team filming adverts or visiting family on the day before that match. There will be no such leeway this week.

"The Scotland game is very important to us because we have to get that defeat to Holland out of our system," said Modric. "We had a bad day and we want to get our confidence back before the Euro starts. Victory over Scotland is all we are thinking about this week."

GUITAR MAN SLAVEN AWAY FOR A PITTANCE (Scotland v Croatia, Hampden Park, Wednesday 8pm, live on Sky Sports 2)

Slaven Bilic is the lowest paid coach of a national team in Europe, with a current salary of around £45,000 – 100 times less than the £4.5m reportedly paid to England head coach Fabio Capello.

• His pay is still around 10 times the national average salary in Croatia, and although the 39-year-old former defender says he is not motivated by money, the Croatian FA are keen to vastly improve it to prevent him being lured away into more lucrative club management.

• Bilic played for West Ham and Everton in the Premiership, but began and ended his playing career at hometown club Hajduk Split. He won 44 caps, scoring in three internationals, and was part of the first Croatia side to appear in a World Cup in 1998.

• Bilic claims the secret of his success as a manager is… his guitar. "Some guys play golf, some guys play street football, others play chess… I play guitar and I need it to do my job properly," he says. "Sometimes it's my charger and sometimes it relaxes me but I definitely need it and can't do my job without music."

• After Croatia gained independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, the national team was recognised by FIFA and UEFA in the summer of 1992 and played their first competitive matches in the qualifying campaign for Euro '96.

• They are undefeated in all competitive matches on home soil since 1994. They reached both 2002 and 2006 World Cups without losing a qualifying match.

• Croatia have been more volatile in the FIFA World Rankings than any other nation. They were 125th in 1994, rising to third just five years later. They are currently 12th – two places above Scotland.

• One celebrity supporter is BBC's Match of the Day 2 presenter Adrian Chiles, whose mother was born in Croatia. West Brom fan Chiles also speaks Croatian.

• Croatia's top scorer is former Arsenal striker Davor Suker (left), with 45 international goals in 69 appearances before his retirement in 2002. He won the golden boot, with six goals from seven matches, as he led Croatia to their third-place finish in the 1998 World Cup in France.

• Croatia qualified for Euro 2008 as Group E leaders along with second-placed Russia. Two victories against England – 2-0 in Zagreb and 3-2 at Wembley on the final match day in November – meant England failed to qualify, costing manager Steve McClaren his job.

• Scotland's two previous meetings with Croatia, in the qualifiers for the 2002 World Cup, were both draws. Craig Brown's men drew 1-1 in Zagreb in October 2000, Kevin Gallacher equalising after Alen Boksic scored early on. The Hampden return in September 2001 finished goalless.

• Croatia's most capped player is AC Milan defender Dario Simic, who will earn his 97th cap if he plays against Scotland on Wednesday.

Martin Allen