And that was not all. Goalkeeping coach Marijan Mrmic also lost his father, while Croatia boss Ante Cacic also revealed that the husband of another member of staff had suffered a stroke. After an awful few days, the focus returns to football and Cacic called for the sadness to be a motivating factor for his team in Thursday’s pre-match press conference ahead of the game against Czech Republic in Saint-Etienne on Friday.

“What can you do?” he said. “It was not easy, but on the other hand it can motivate us more. The lady from our accounts office, her husband had a stroke as well, so there have lots of bad situations, but we are just focused on tomorrow’s match and on trying to play our best.”

For his part, Srna flew back to Croatia for his father’s funeral and there were doubts over whether he would return to the squad, but the captain is in France again and faced the media at the press conference on Thursday.

“It’s a very difficult moment for me and my family,” he said. “I just have to say thank to everybody. This is my first appearance in front of the media after the match against Turkey and I just have to say thank you to all my friends, my family, my team-mates, for all the support since I heard the news after the match.”

And asked whether he had thought about staying in Croatia, he said he had returned to be with his team because that was the final wish of his father.

“It my father’s last wish that I be here at the Euros,” he said. “Everything in his life was just for me to win as much as possible with the Croatian football team, so I went back to my house in Metkovic, and they told me that his wish was for me to here at the Euros with Croatia and have as much success as possible with the national team.”

Visibly very sad after the events of the last few days, Srna then asked reporters to move on to other matters as he reiterated his commitment to the national team.

“I think we have talked enough about my father’s death,” he said when the subject was raised again. “I am here and I am focused on tomorrow’s match against the Czech Republic. I am the captain and I am here. When I got married, I flew the next night to play against Austria. So I’m here for my national team.”

The Shakhtar Donetsk right-back, now 34, has been with the Croatia national side since 2002 and believes the country’s current crop is even better than the one that won third place at the World Cup 18 years ago.”Maybe we are a better team than the generation from 1998,” he said. “But I’m not sure we can get to second or third pace or to the final – we are a good team, with good players, good technical staff and good supporters, we play good football, leave our heart on the pitch and try to make our supporters happy.”

Those supporters will be happy if Croatia can achieve similar success this time around and for Srna’s father – a man who dreamed of seeing his son help the team to the very top – progress to the final stages of this tournament would also be a fitting tribute.