Qatar 2022: Croatia win third place match, beat Morocco 2-1

The Croatian team in the 2022 Qatar World Cup on Saturday emerged third place winner after beating Morocco 2-1.

Goals by Gvardiol and Orsic gave Croatia the 2-1 victory over Morocco, who had equalised with Dari at Khalifa International Stadium.

A sublime header from Joško Gvardiol in the seventh minute made the 20-year-old Croatia’s youngest-ever goal scorer in the national shirt.

Two minutes later, Achraf Dari equalised with a header of his own, and Saturday’s game looked like it might be a goal-fest for the ages.

But action at Doha’s Khalifa International Stadium settled after 10 frantic opening minutes into an entertaining, if less frenetic, match-up as both teams attempted to end their World Cup journey on a high.

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Croatia, the 2018 runners-up, started to dominate possession, with Morocco happy to sit deep and contain.

The winner came in the 42nd minute, when Mislav Orsic lobbed a curling ball over the Morocco keeper Yassine Bounou with power, clipping the inside of the far post to rebound into the opposite side netting.

An absolute peach of a shot that meant that Qatar 2022 was the 11th World Cup in a row that a European team finished third.

“It was a great game, we still can’t measure what happened today. Only after a few days we will realise how big this victory is,” Orsic said after the game.

“It was the most important game of my career and I’d like to dedicate it to my family and all the Croatian fans.”

Regragui disappointed

Morocco coach Walid Regragui said he was “a bit disappointed” with a second consecutive defeat but that “they did everything”.