2022 World Cup – Saturday 17 December 2022

Third/Fourth Place Play-off: Croatia v Morocco (Khalifa International Stadium, Al Rayyan)

Every time the World Cup comes round since starting this site and writing a diary, I seem to end up saying the same thing about this particular fixture and it’ll never change – it’s the game nobody wants to play in. Does it really matter to a player, manager/coach or fan if they finish third or fourth? The fact is reaching the final and winning it is all that matters with even the runners-up in the final mere footnotes in the pages of football history.

Want proof? Well, Morocco head coach Walid Regragui, said the following ahead of the game:

“It is a little bit difficult. It is very complicated for both teams. You are so disappointed, you have just lost a semi-final and then two days later you have to go back out there.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know. It is like the booby-prize. I’m sorry for speaking like this. I understand it should be important, I understand it is better to finish third than fourth, but, for me, my takeaway is just that we didn’t get to the final.

“Even if we did get to the final, and I finished second, I would be saying the same thing to you.

“We want to be as positive as possible, especially for our fans. Finishing third would be great for our image.”

These two played out a very cautious 0-0 draw in a game that was part of the opening round of games in Group F. It will be interesting to see if this is a ‘throw caution to the wind’ type of game and how the teams line-up. This will undoubtedly be a last World Cup for a number of the Croatian squad notably their talented skipper Luka Modric and presumably and hopefully he will start. For Morocco they have injuries but as they showed against France they coped admirably. Fingers crossed for an open and entertaining fixture. Please not a 0-0 and decided on penalties!