Croatia World Cup 2018

Croatia World Cup 2018

1998 Semi Finalists Croatia came through a tough qualifying campaign, and a play-off, to book their place in Russia. They will now be hoping to advance past the group stage for the first time since that third-place finish in France.

History at the World Cup

Croatia were a part of Yugoslavia for many years and entered their first World Cup as an independent nation in 1998. They took the world by storm, making it through to the Semi Final, with Davor Suker ending the tournament as top scorer. That tournament saw them beat Jamaica, Japan, Romania, and Germany before losing out to France in the last four.

Their performances led many to predict Croatia would push on from that and become a team who regularly made it to the latter stages of tournaments. That wasn’t to be the case though, as they have never gone past the group stage of a World Cup since. Qualifying for three finals since 1998, in 2002, 2006, and 2014, they have won a total of just two matches from the six played.

How they qualified

Croatia were drawn in a tough UEFA qualifying group, alongside Iceland, Turkey, Ukraine, Finland, and Kosovo.

Six wins, two draws, and two defeats was only enough to finish second, two points behind Iceland, and that meant a play-off against Greece for a place in Russia.

The Croatian players weren’t going to allow this to be a tense or nervy affair, storming to a 4-1 victory in the first leg and playing out a goalless second leg.

Mario Mandzukic top scored for Croatia, and finished second in the group, with five goals during the group stage of qualifying.

Coach/Manager

With World Cup qualification at risk, after Croatia dropped to second place in the group, the decision was made to sack head coach Ante Cacic and replace him with Zlatko Dalic.

Dalic took charge of his first game against Ukraine, which was the final group match of the qualifying campaign, and had a winning start.

He then led them through the play-off victory with Greece, meaning his record as Croatia manager currently stands at, played three, won two, and drew one.

It’s early days for Dalic, and it remains to be seen if the team improve or go backwards under him.

Star Players

Captain Luka Modric is the star of the Croatia team, with the Real Madrid midfielder making over 100 appearances for his country and playing at two World Cups. The Real Madrid star is widely considered to be among the best midfielders in the world, and that is shown by the number of honours he has received. He is a five-time Croatian Player of the Year, has been named in the FIFA World XI for the past three years, and was selected in the UEFA Team of the Year in 2016. Other stand-out players in the Croatian squad are Ivan Perisic and Ivan Rakitic, while Mario Mandzukic sits second on the list of all-time leading scorers for Croatia.

Croatia World Cup 2018: Assessing Their Chances & Odds

With their star players not getting any younger, this could be the last time fans get to see players like Modric and Mandzukic as part of a Croatia World Cup squad. So, this could be the last chance these players get to reach the latter stages of the tournament. Unfortunately, they have been handed a tough draw in a group with Argentina, Nigeria, and the team that finished above them in qualifying, Iceland.

The bookmakers price them as a clear second favourite in the group, at odds of around 9/4 to win the group and 1/2 to advance to the next round. However, those odds could be a little short considering Iceland pipped them in qualifying and Nigeria have a great chance of being the outsiders who exceed expectations here.

Our Croatia World Cup Prediction

This is a tough one to predict, as Croatia are a team full of talented players who know that it’s the last time to shine at this level for some of the squad. If we went with betting odds, we would clearly put Croatia as runners-up of their group and have them moving on to a last 16 encounter with the winners of Group C. But, football isn’t played on paper or by statisticians and there’s a high possibility Croatia will fail to make it out of the group for a fourth consecutive World Cup.