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The penultimate game of the World Cup is here, we preview the third-place fixture between Croatia and Morocco.
Morocco and Croatia missed out on the World Cup final after losing their semi-final games to France and Argentina respectively.
Both teams had previously faced off in the group stages, and the game ended in a goalless draw.
Morocco had a storied run into this round of the competition, they became the first country from the African continent to reach the World cup semifinal. They did that by beating both Spain and Portugal in the knockout rounds.
Croatia had an impressive run of their own, knocking out Japan and World number one Brazil on their run to the semi-finals.
The third-place match would kick off by 4:00 pm, Saturday the 17th of December at the Khalifa International Stadium, Doha.
Croatia vs Morocco Head-to-Head
Croatia and Morocco met earlier in this tournament, in the opening game of Group F which ended in a goalless draw.
Croatia vs Morocco match form
Both teams lost their most recent game in the competition, after managing to knock out giants Brazil and Portugal on their way there.
Players to watch
Luka Modric is now 37 years old, and this could be his final game at the World Cup, with the performances he has put up so far, a lot is to be expected from him in this tie.
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Sofyan Amrabat has arguably been the best holding midfielder in the tournament so far, with the midfield being Croatia's biggest strength, Amrabat would have his work cut out for him, and have to be at his best.
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Walid Regragui on Morocco's style of play
“A lot of Europeans have criticised our style of play but that is because they don’t like to see an African team play cleverly," he said in a presser. "They think African teams used to be fun but get knocked out. But those days are over now. There isn’t just one way of winning.
“Look at France against England, they didn’t create 40 opportunities, they were just effective. I don’t really care about expected goals or possession. We had 0.01 per cent chance of winning the World Cup at the outset, now we have 0.03 but we are going to try and destroy statistics.”
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Croatia's possible line up Vs Morocco
Livakovic; Juranovic, Lovren, Sutalo, Sosa; Modric, Jakic, Kovacic; Vlasic, Kramaric, Perisic
Morocco's possible line up vs Croatia
Bono; Hakimi, El-Yamiq, Dari, Attiyat-Allah; Ounahi, Amrabat, Amallah; Ziyech, En-Nesyri, Boufal
Prediction
This game would be very difficult and it is hard to see it getting resolved in regular time. The prediction is the winner would be determined using extra time and maybe even penalties.
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