It’s a match that nobody wants to play in, but if you’re in it, you might as well win it.
When Croatia and Morocco began their FIFA World Cup journeys last month, their goal was the same as that of the 30 other teams in the tournament – hoist the trophy on Dec. 18. Even though that can’t happen now, the two teams have the opportunity to leave Qatar with something a little more concrete than simply bragging rights when they meet on Saturday in the third-place playoff in Qatar.
A fixture since 1954 at the World Cup, the third-place match normally offers goals galore since teams tend to open up and attack with there being little reason to defend. The 1958 edition saw nine goals, with France defeating West Germany 6-3. In the last third-place match at Russia 2018, Belgium was a 2-0 winner over England.
The match is treated like every other World Cup knockout match, meaning that extra time and then penalties would come into play should it remain level after 90 minutes. Extra time has only been utilized once at a third-place game, when France beat Belgium 4-2 in Mexico in 1986.
In somewhat of a quirk, the third-place match will be a rematch as Croatia and Morocco have already played one another in Qatar. All the way back on Group F’s Matchday 1 on Nov. 23, Croatia and Morocco played to a scoreless draw. The Atlas Lions would go on to top the group on seven points with Croatia advancing on five.
In all honesty, it might be difficult for either team to get up for this match following their emotional defeats in their respective semifinals.
Croatia was well beaten on Tuesday by Argentina with Lionel Messi starring and Julian Alvarez bagging a brace. Morocco’s loss to France on Wednesday was more soul-crushing. The better team for much of the 90 minutes, the Atlas Lions fought valiantly, but France’s superior depth and talent won out in a 2-0 victory that put Les Bleus on course to become the first team in 60 years to win back-to-back World Cups.
So then after seeing your hopes of winning the World Cup taken from you, how do steel yourself to prepare for a third-place match?
Like many teams have before them, Croatia manager Zlatko Dalic and Morocco’s Walid Regragui might choose to field experimental lineups in the third-place match and not rely on the same players they have been during the tournament proper. Teams have used the third-place match as a chance to empty out their bench.
For Morocco, that might be out of necessity.
After the loss to France, Regragui admitted his team had been run ragged, dealing with just too many injuries and illness. Captain Romain Saiss was stretchered off after only 57 minutes against Portugal in the quarter-finals and still somehow attempted to play against Les Bleus, but had to be taken out in the 21st with the realization that he simply couldn’t carry on. West Ham defender Nayef Aguerd was also dealing with an injury that was compounded by illness. He, too, tried to play on Wednesday, but was pulled in warmups.
“I have no regrets about the decision,” Regragui said about relying on Saiss and benching Aguerd. “Nayef’s absence was difficult, and all of these little things meant we got off to quite a poor start. You learn from your mistakes, I do, as well. If all our squad was fit we could have caused them even more problems. At a World Cup, this was one step too far – not in terms of quality or tactics but physically, we had too many players at 60-70 per cent.”
Runners-up in 2018, Croatia came close to becoming the first team since Brazil in 2022 to reach back-to-back Finals. With the match against Argentina out of reach, Croatia’s talisman and the best player the country has ever produced, Luka Modric, was substituted in the 81st. The Real Madrid icon soaked in the cheers and hugged each of his teammates as he came off of the pitch. If that weren’t an official goodbye to international football for the 2018 Ballon d’Or winner, it certainly felt like one.
Whether or not Modric will be a part of the team that takes the pitch on Saturday remains to be seen, but his post-match remarks seemed to indicate he’d like to play. Modric hit out at the semifinal referee Daniele Orsato and his awarding of a penalty to Argentina when Alvarez went to ground after colliding with goalkeeper Dominik Livakovic.
“I don’t like to talk about referees…but this is one of the worst,” the 37-year-old Modric said. “I [w]on’t have a good memory of him. He’s a disaster. For me, it wasn’t a penalty. Despite this, I don’t want to detract from Argentina. The penalty killed us. We have to recover for third place and win that game.”
On the injury front for Dalic’s team, Marcelo Brozovic appears to be a doubt with the Inter midfielder having come off injured against Argentina.
It’s also highly likely that both Regragui and Dalic will give some of their younger players a run on Saturday with 18-year-old midfielder Bilal El Khannous and a trio of young forwards in Zakaria Aboukhlal, Anass Zaroury and Abde Ezzalzouli seeing playing time for the Atlas Lions and Red Bull Salzburg midfielder Luka Sucic taking the pitch for Croatia at some point.
POTENTIAL MOROCCO XI: Bono; Hakimi, Dari, El Yamiq, Attiyat Allah; Amrabat, Ounahi, Amallah; Ziyech, En-Nesyri, Boufal
POTENTIAL CROATIA XI: Livakovic; Juranovic, Lovren, Gvardiol, Sosa; Jakic, Kovacic, Modric; Vlasic, Kramaric, Perisic
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