By Eniola Olatunji
The Atlas Lions of Morocco caught in a spate of clumsy defensive work on Saturday lost the world cup Bronze medal to a more adventurous Croatia 2-1.
It was either the Avocado head, Wahid Regragui tutored boys were not clearing their lines well or gifting their passes to the Croatian attackers. It was the case that made Ivan Perisic pounce on a rolling ball to quickly pass to Josko Gvardial, sporting the number 20 shirt for Croatia who nodded in the first goal in the 7th minute.
Incidentally number 20 jersey, Achraf Dari retaliated also via a header 9th minute when Lovro Majer made a mistake in the defence. Score board read 1-1. Both scorers were playing in the central defence but had to overlap to get the vital goals.
Playing was much in the mid-field as they packed the area with their playing pattern, Croatia played 4-4-2 while Morocco played 4-3-3.
On resumption of the second half, the 48,000 capacity Khalifa International stadium, Doha that had 44,137 fans rooted for their teams. The number was lower than the 59,407 fans that were at the stadium on 23rd November when both teams opened their world cup match in their group stages at Al Bayt Stadium. Both teams met on their first outing in Qatar and both ended together though in the first meeting it ended goalless.
A winner had to emerge, so when again Bilal El Khannous of Morocco made another blunder, Marko Livaja who collected the ball from him found Mislav Orsic whose shot in the 42nd minute hit the left upright and bounced into the net for the winning goal.
Croatian Captain who was playing his 19th match in all his world cup final appearance, which may be the last for the 37 year old player looked tired throughout and commanded the team more verbally than through the ball as was his habit. They marked him out of the game.
Croatia was more goals minded having 4 shots on target hitting 7 off target while Morocco had 2 on target and 4 off target; Croatia therefore played 6 corner kicks from the blockings while Morocco played 3. The cross passes of 16-15 for Croatia were decoded by both sides and the only 2 yellow cards were given to Morocco.
Both teams were rough and it was like Abdulrahman Al Jassim of Qatar who flashed 6 yellow cards in the USA versus Wales match and was 4th Ref in the Portugal versus Uruguay match of November 28 was pro Croatia as he neglected the kicking of the Lions in the Croatian territory. One expected Julio Bascunan of Chile who headed the VAR team to call his attention but after talking on his headphone each time Al Jassim would continue with the match. That made the players of Morocco to swarm on him like Bees like three times to protest his calls. After the match, Moroccan officials had to literarily lift two of their players who appear to be aggressive on their complaint which FIFA classify as dissent and may attract negative boardroom decisions on the Africans.
No matter what, Morocco has emerged that first African team to place 4th in the Men’s Senior world cup while Croatia that in the last world cup took home the Silver medal this time around were presented their Bronze medals after the match.
In Russia, the then President of Croatia, Madam Kolanda Grabar-Kitarovic was at the stadium to watch the finals and hugged each player in the dressing room after they lost the coveted trophy to France. This year, the new Croatian President, Zoran Milanovic grinned like a school boy after the blast of last whistle.
On Sunday, the grand finale will start showing from 1400 hours Nigerian time but the match proper between defending Champions, France and Argentina starts at 1600 hours. Final awards and statistics will be made known after the match. For now battle for the Golden Boot for Highest Scorer is between Lionel Messi of Argentina and Kylian Mbappe of France who has 5 goals each. It is not clear whether the Moroccan Goal Keeper, Bono who is a leading contender will still win.
Eniola Olatunji reporting.
FifaworldcupQatar2022.
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