Bronze for Croatia

 

In the 3^rd/4^th play-offs CROATIA played against Morocco the dark horse of the tournament. Croatia had won just one of their group stage against Canada which is their highest score of the tournament 4-1. The other two games they drew. In the second round they beat Japan and in the quarter-finals they won 4-2 against Brazil. In the semi-finals they lost 3-0 to Argentina.

We had a great start to this game as Croatia went in front in the 7^th minute with a header from Gvardiol. Two minutes later Morocco equalised also from a header by Dari. In the first half hour of the game it seemed that the Moroccan defence were all over the place and the goalkeeper did not help either. But the game soon settles down with both sides attacked well. Croatia went into the lead just before half time in the 42^nd minute from Orsic in off the post. Half time 2-1 to Croatia. The second half slowed down after a very fast pace of the first half. Subs came on to help but it made no difference to the game. Croatia picked up the bronze medal and finished on a total of 8 goals while Morocco have done extremely well here in Qatar.

Croatia are in their 4^th World Cup with us and they first joined in France 1998, where they finished with their best score of 11 goals going out in the 3^rd/4^th play-offs. The last time that we had them was in the German 2006 where they scored just 2 goals and went out after the first round. Their average score for a World Cup is 5 goals.