As a team who might meet England in the second round, Croatia are unlikely to send shivers along Glenn Hoddle's spine. But they remain a difficult side to break down, as Japan discovered on Saturday.

Davor Suker's second goal of the tournament virtually assured the Croatians of progressing, towards the end of a ponderous performance by Miroslav Blazevic's chequered shirts. At times the Japanese passing and tackling made their opponents' football appear laboured, but Croatia still created the clearer chances.

They remain much as they were in Euro 96, a mixture of the marvellous and the mundane, thoroughly predictable one minute, totally spontaneous the next.

Suker provides the difference. In fact the Real Madrid striker should have won Saturday's match for Croatia long before he did. As early as the 11th minute he produced a shot which skimmed the crossbar. A minute later his free-kick swung around the defensive wall and just past a post.

In the 72nd minute, running on to a through-pass from Silvio Maric, he lob-volleyed the advancing Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi with the deftest of touches and was unlucky to see the ball hit the bar. Five minutes later Aljosa Asanovic provided the short cross from which Suker at last scored, Kawaguchi being caught out of position by the unexpected angle of the shot.

The introduction of Zoran Mamic at half-time and Maric later on strengthened Croatia's lines of communication with Suker, previously non-existent at times. The ability of the injured Zvonimir Boban to carry the game to the opposition at speed was urgently needed.

At the back, however, Croatia looked as solid as ever. For all Japan's ingenuity in the approaches to goal and in particular the vision of the red-headed Hidetoshi Nakata, they never seriously disturbed the authority of Zvonimir Soldo, the Croatia sweeper.

Nevertheless they did come close to taking the lead in the 34th minute when Masashi Nakayama was through with only Drazen Ladic to beat but failed to get in a proper shot.

That was the difference. When Suker was similarly placed he did not miss.

A FIFA representative asked the Croatian ambassador to France to keep out of sporting matters on Saturday after the envoy objected to the use of a Serb translator at a post-match interview.

FIFA representative Markus Siegler went backstage to discuss the matter with the ambassador after a Croatian official sought to take over the translation at a news conference with Croatian trainer Miroslav Blazevic.

"It was made clear that basically this was not their patch," FIFA spokesman Keith Cooper said yesterday.

Cooper noted that Blazevic himself had not objected to the interpreter who, it appeared, had been factually and gramatically accurate, but had spoken with a Serb accent.

Until the violent break-up of the Yugoslav federation in 1991, Croats and Serbs considered they spoke variations of a common language, Serbo-Croat. FIFA has promised to use Croatian translators for future news conferences but Croatia has already said it will lodge a formal complaint with the soccer body.

Croatian players were also critical of World Cup organisers after the tournament schedule forced them to play in mid-afternoon on the hottest day of the tournament to date.