Croatia national team coach Igor Stimac offered his resignation tonight despite his team qualifying for the World Cup playoffs.

Stimac offered his resignation after Croatia lost 2-0 to Scotland at Hampden Park on the final day of the group matches in the UEFA confederation of World Cup qualifying matches.

Croatia are through to the playoffs where they’ll face an opportunity to reach FIFA World Cup 2014. But such was the shame in losing 2-0 that Stimac was far from impressed. While Stimac didn’t mean it, his offer to resign is a slap in the face to Scotland (i.e. if Croatia can’t beat Scotland, then it’s a resignation-worthy offense to Stimac).

Stimac says that the Croatian Football Federation will decide whether to accept Stimac’s resignation or not. The Croatian coach said it had nothing to do with the defeat at the hands of Scotland, but it’s been a long time coming in terms of question marks about Stimac being in charge of the national team.

On top of that, Stimac doesn’t believe Croatia will qualify for the World Cup the way the team is playing, so maybe he’s trying to get himself fired or to have his resignation granted?

Croatia will learn on Monday who they’ll play in the playoffs.

Based on the interview below, it appears that Stimac is using the fact of Croatia qualifying as a way to force the issue whether the Croatian federation will support him or not.