Third place match: Morocco vs Croatia
At 23:00 pm Beijing time on December 17, the third-place battle for the 2022 Qatar World Cup will begin. The two sides are Plaid Legion Croatia and Atlas Lions Morocco!
One game has two meanings
This match does not mean exactly the same thing to Croatia and Morocco!
The same is a battle of honor, for Croatia, which has already won the second and third places in the World Cup once! Winning the third place again is not so important, on the contrary, playing their style and level in the last game, giving the fans a wonderful game may be more important to them, especially for Modric, who is about to leave the World Cup stage, this is his last dance, he has to complete the swan song of the master!
World No. 1 midfielder Modric
For Morocco, this game is completely different! They have a mandate to represent Africa! This is the first time an African team has reached the last four, and each step further is the history of African football! So the third place is still very attractive to them.
Morocco, which has already made history on behalf of Africa
所以从这个角度来说，本场比赛应该会是克罗地亚踢得比较开放，而摩洛哥继续防守反击！ 但是足球的平衡转换都是一念之间的事，既然克罗地亚踢得开放那么摩洛哥反击的机会就会比较多！ 所以观众对这场比赛的精彩程度可以有所期待！
The third place battle in history
In the history of the World Cup, the third-place competition is generally more exciting than the championship battle, and we look back at the results of several third-place battles in the 21st century.
2018 Belgium 2:0 England
2014 Netherlands 3:0 Brazil
2010 Germany 3:2 Uruguay
2006 Germany 3:1 Portugal
2002 Turkey 3:2 South Korea
19 goals in five matches, in stark contrast to 12 in five finals (France 4-2 Croatia contributed 6 goals in 2018 and only 6 in the other four matches)
Historical record of fighting between the two sides
Morocco and Croatia have only met twice in their history, the first in December 1996, when they were tied 2-2, and the most recent was in the group stage of this World Cup, where they drew 0-0 (Morocco and Croatia are in Group F of the 2022 World Cup Qatar)
Technical statistics of the matches between the two sides in the group stage of the 2022 World Cup
Statistics of both sides up to the semi-finals
Technical statistics of the two teams up to the end of the semi-finals
Preview of the game
Friends who have read my previous articles must know the style of play of the two teams.
Croatia is the typical control type, looking for opportunities in control rather than the type of stormy attack. The midfield has Modric's methodical schedule, while the striker has both high Petkovic and skilled Mayer and Vlasic. As a result, Croatia ranked third of all teams with 3,666 passes, but also ranked first in long passes and crosses, as well as scramble success. So it's a very distinctive team
Croatia with high degree of technology
Defensively, Croatia's anchor is goalkeeper Livakovic, who has already attracted the attention of several of Europe's top five league giants. In fact, the entire back line is difficult to say excellent, has been shot by the opponent 29 times on target, if not for the goalkeeper's 24 saves, I am afraid Croatia would not have reached the final four.
Morocco, on the other hand. They are definitely a beautiful landscape of this World Cup, and anti-rebellion has been made into art by them. But they had to press out and attack in the semifinals, possessing 61 percent, compared to 40 percent of their highest possession in the previous five games, proving that pressing out the attack was not their specialty. Morocco's counterattack still relied on a combination of Ziyeh, Ashraf and Mazraoui. En Nesri up front has height and headers. So Morocco's long pass ranks second among all teams. Full-backs breaking through the bottom line and crosses from the centre are another routine of their attack. So it's very important to guard against the Moroccan wing. Morocco is not very attacking and has scored only five goals in six games.
Morocco's defense is really excellent, ranking first of all teams in terms of clearances and second in interceptions. In six games, the opponent only had 12 shots on target, conceding only three goals (including an own own goal). The 3 midfielders in the 433 formation are actually mainly focused on defense, and they start strangling opponents from midfield.
N-Nesri headed the game against Portugal
Ultimate score prediction
Based on the above analysis, I think it will be a very open match, the open game is not easy to predict, but considering that Morocco and Croatia are not very attacking power, I guess the score of Morocco vs Croatia is 1:2 or 2:2. The reason why Croatia won is that they value their experience in the game more. And refer to the tips below: the third place matches in the last ten World Cups have been won by European teams.
Tips
- This is the second time Croatia and Morocco have met in this World Cup, with the two teams drawing 0-0 in the first round of the group stage. Croatia had just five shots on goal in that match, their fewest in a single World Cup.
- Croatia have kept clean sheets in three World Cup matches against African teams, 4-0 Cameroon in 2014; 2-0 Nigeria in 2018 and 0-0 Morocco this year.
- None of the previous 19 World Cup third-place matches had gone to penalty shootouts, with only one going to extra time (France vs Belgium 1986). Since Brazil's 2-1 victory over Italy in 1978, European teams have won their last 10 World Cup matches.
- This is the second time Croatia have competed for third place, the first being a 2-1 victory over the Netherlands in 1998.
- Croatia lost 3-0 to Argentina in the semi-finals, equalling their total for the first five matches of the 2022 World Cup. They are also the team with the most shots on goal in this World Cup (75).
- Morocco conceded more goals in a single game in their 2-0 defeat to France in the semi-finals than they conceded in the first five matches of this World Cup (1). They remain on track to become the eighth team to keep five clean sheets in a single World Cup, with the top seven being the Netherlands (1974), Italy (1990), Brazil (1994), France (1998), Germany (2002), Italy (2006) and Spain (2010).
- The 37-year-old Luka Modric has played all six of Croatia's World Cup matches, and of the players over the age of 37, only goalkeepers Peter Hilton (1990) and Dino Zoff (1982) have played more games in a single World Cup (all seven).
- Ivan Perisic has already scored six World Cup goals for Croatia – one more goal and he will overtake Davo Suk as Croatia's top scorer at the World Cup.
- Morocco's Azedina Unahi has a 77% (10/13) success rate at the 2022 World Cup, the highest among players who have made at least 10 passes.