In Doha
A World Cup third place play-off is a match neither team featuring realistically wants to play considering their aspirations to fight for the ultimate title had been snuffed just days earlier.
But banish the thought that Croatia and Morocco, who meet for the second time in this tournament, will be walking into the Khalifa International Stadium today just for the formalities.
Both camps have loudly declared their intentions setting the stage for another alluring battle that kicks off at 6pm.
“We want to go home as the number three team in the world,” Croatia coach Zlatko Dalic simply said Friday.
“We would have liked to have been in the final but there is a third place to play for. We want to finish on the podium,” declared the young Morocco coach Walid Regragui who has been largely praised here in Qatar for guiding the Atlas Lions to Africa’s first ever semi-final appearance.
The 47-year-old France-born coach said: “Our performance has been good. We were considered underdogs but we reached the semi-final. I hope we will put on a good show. We want to go home with a medal.”
Morocco held Croatia to a barren draw in their Group ‘F’ encounter some 24 days ago before stunning Belgium 2-0, Spain (0-0, 3-0 on penalties) and Portugal (1-0) to enter the semis where they lost 2-0 to France on Wednesday.
Regragui said he wanted to write more history by claiming the number three spot in world football. This will see Morocco set the record of the best finish by a non-European or South American nation in the tournament since 1930, when the USA finished third.
But it will be an uphill task.
Before their barren draw at Al Bayt the only other meeting between the two nations was a 2-2 draw in Casablanca in 1996.
Croatia are not new to playing at this stage.
The 2018 losing finalists finished third in France 1998 after defeating Netherlands 2-1 in Paris.
More importantly for Morocco’s information, Croatia have yet to concede a goal against African opposition at the World Cup, beating Cameroon (4-0 in 2014) and Nigeria (2-0 in 2018) before the stalemate with Morocco.
Both coaches will have to deal with a long injury list. Morocco, for instance, will be without their captain Saiss Romain of Besiktas and his dependable central defence partner Nayef Aguerd of West Ham.
Regragui, meanwhile, said the Morocco Football Federation had every right to make a formal complaint to Fifa over the officiating of their semi-final match against France.
The Atlas Lions have taken issue with the yellow card handed to midfielder Soufiane Boufal by Mexican referee Cesar Ramos after he got entangled with France’s Theo Hernandez as both players went down.
Television replay showed that it was the French player who had in fact brought down Boufal.
“There are issues with the referee, and if there are, then the federation can raise a complaint. We should have had a penalty and Soufiane should not have been given a yellow card. But we congratulate France for advancing,” said Regragui.
