Perisic criticises Croatian FA after Pjaca injury
ZAGREB (Reuters) - Croatia winger Ivan Perisic criticised the country's FA chief Davor Suker for picking "lesser rivals" as opponents after his team mate Marko Pjaca suffered a season-ending knee injury in Tuesday's 3-0 friendly defeat in Estonia, local media reported.
Juventus forward Pjaca returned to action in January from a lengthy layoff and the Croatian Football Association said the damage to his cruciate knee ligaments would require surgery and several months of rehabilitation.
"The pitch we played on is unworthy of professional football and there is no point in arranging matches of this kind," Perisic was quoted as saying by Croatia's Index website (www.index.hr) on Wednesday.
"I would advise Mr Suker to pick better opposition with facilities of higher quality because we can only lose more players on such horrendous surfaces. The biggest defeat of this friendly was losing Pjaca."
Perisic started in a makeshift Croatian side beaten by the Estonians after Friday's 1-0 World Cup qualifying win over Ukraine kept them top of European Group I with 13 points from five games.
(Writing by Zoran Milosavljevic, editing by Ed Osmond)