ALEXANDRIA, Va. – A day after a World Cup team turned a high school field into a citywide celebration, the Croatian national side got back to work — and, at its second press conference in Alexandria, made clear the city has made a good first impression.
Goalkeeper Dominik Livaković and midfielder Martin Baturina met reporters Thursday afternoon at Episcopal High School, the campus serving as Croatia’s training base for the group stage of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Speaking through the team’s translator, Livaković repeatedly praised the team’s setup in Alexandria, calling the conditions excellent and the atmosphere in the camp strong as the team counts down to its tournament opener.
“We have excellent conditions here, and everything is pretty good,” Livaković said, pointing to a productive training camp and the welcome the team has received since arriving Tuesday night.
A first World Cup match, indoors in Texas
Croatia opens its World Cup against England on Wednesday, June 17, at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas — a marquee Group L matchup and, for many, the toughest test of the group. Despite the Texas summer, that game will be played in comfort: AT&T Stadium has a retractable roof and air conditioning, and the roof is expected to be closed to keep the venue climate-controlled.
From there, Croatia faces Panama on June 23 in Toronto and Ghana on June 27 in Philadelphia. Between trips, the team will train in Alexandria and return to its base camp after each match, meaning Alexandria will be the Vatreni’s home for as long as their tournament run lasts.
The heat that has gripped the region this week — temperatures near 95 degrees on Thursday — came up at the press conference, but the players waved it off. They drink plenty of water, use ice baths, and pointed out that summers in Croatia are hot, too. “When it’s hot, it’s hot,” Baturina said. “We just need to adapt.”
The two players who faced the media
Dominik Livaković, 31, is Croatia’s first-choice goalkeeper and one of the most decorated names in the squad. A native of Zadar on the Adriatic coast, he became a national hero at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, where his penalty-shootout heroics against Japan and Brazil helped carry Croatia to a third-place finish. He came up through the youth ranks at NK Zadar before building his career at Dinamo Zagreb, where he is playing this season. He spoke Thursday about recovering from an injury-disrupted year and finishing strong, winning a domestic double with Dinamo this spring.
Martin Baturina, 23, represents the next generation of Croatian football — one of the young midfielders being asked to eventually fill the void left by captain Luka Modrić, the 40-year-old AC Milan great playing in what is widely expected to be his final World Cup. Baturina, who plays for Como in Italy’s Serie A, came through the academy system at Hajduk Split and Dinamo Zagreb. He described a difficult start in Italy that turned into a breakout, saying he used early bench time to improve physically and tactically. “When you start as a player, it’s your dream to play for your nation at the World Cup,” he said. “So I’m living my dream.”
From the kids’ side of the fence
The Brief asked both players to think back to their own childhoods — to when they were the age of the few hundred Alexandria kids who watched the team train Wednesday night and, afterward, met players who came over to sign autographs and hand out mini soccer balls.
Livaković returned to the image of a young fan watching stars up close. It meant a lot to him as a boy to see his idols in person, he said, calling it a real inspiration — and thanking the Alexandria families who turned out. “We feel very welcome here,” he said. Baturina, too, offered thanks for the reception, saying everyone has been gracious to the team.
Their answers landed gently on a question Alexandria has been circling since it won the base-camp bid: what a city’s young athletes might take from having a World Cup team in their midst. For at least two of the Vatreni, the memory of watching the game’s best as a child was formative — the same experience hundreds of Alexandria kids had Wednesday.
Why Croatia keeps punching above its weight
Croatia, a nation of fewer than four million people, has become one of international football’s most reliable overachievers — a World Cup finalist in 2018 and a semifinalist in 2022. Asked what explains it, the players pointed inward. Croatians are proud to play for the national team and get along well, Livaković said, crediting experienced leadership — a group he acknowledged he now belongs to. Baturina put it more bluntly: Croatia is often overlooked and underestimated, he said, and the team likes to prove otherwise.
That blend of veteran steel and emerging talent is the story of this squad — Modrić, Livaković and winger Ivan Perišić carrying the institutional memory, players like Baturina representing what comes next. For the next few weeks, both generations will call Alexandria home.
For now, the Vatreni will train behind the gates at Episcopal, mostly out of public view, until they leave for Dallas. Wednesday night — the autographs, the soccer balls, the few hundred local kids — was the only such moment on the federation’s schedule. Whether it proves to be the first of a longer relationship, or simply a good night under clear skies, is a question for the weeks ahead.
World Cup comes to Alexandria: Croatia opens base camp before hundreds of local kids
Under threat of storms, the World Cup runners-up opened their Old Town base camp with autographs and mini soccer balls for hundreds of local kids — as Mayor Gaskins proclaimed “the beginning” of a lasting friendship.
