That’s it for our Croatia v Morocco blog. Thanks for your company and emails during this game and throughout the tournament.
Please join Scott Murray tomorrow for the big one: Argentina v France in the World Cup final. Goodnight!
Luka Modric poses for a selfie with one of the Moroccan backroom staff, then runs across to rejoin his mates as they celebrate in front of the Croatia fans. He’s been killing teams softly for over 15 years, and the World Cup will seriously miss him.
In other news
Some of the Moroccan players are trying to get at the referee, which is more than a little ridiculous, and now Walid Regragui is having an animated discussion with him. I can’t remember any dodgy decisions at all, apart from the penalty that should have given to Croatia for the foul on Gvardiol. Don’t tarnish it lads, the world loves you.
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Full time: Croatia 2-1 Morocco
Croatia finish third at the World Cup, as they did in 1998, after winning an enjoyable game against Morocco.
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90+6 min: So close from En-Nesyri! Attiat-Allah beats his man again on the left, but this time he stands up a lovely cross to the far post. En-Nesyri gets up early, hangs in the air for an age and heads onto the roof of the net. A great effort.
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90+5 min Mislav Orsic, whose memorable goal has probably settled this game, is replaced by Kristijan Jakic.
90+4 min Attiat-Allah beats Stanisic with ease on the left but smashes his cross too close to Livakovic.
90+2 min Amallah’s dangerous inswinging cross is headed away well by Perisic. What a brilliant, multi-purpose footballer he has been.
90+1 min There will be six minutes of added time.
90 min Morocco appeal for a penalty when En-Nesyri’s header, from Hakimi’s cross, deflects off Petkovic and wide. Replays show it hit his shoulder blade, not his arm.
88 min “Greetings from Los Angeles!” writes Michael S Weller. “I appreciated Eric from Pittsburgh’s point about Croatia/Morocco/Belgium in Group F, and his comment made me think about this year’s group stage as a whole. Others have noted how exciting the conclusion of this year’s group stage was; I also wonder if there has been a more evenly balanced set of groups in recent tournaments? In any case, I hope Fifa decide to keep the groups of four for 2026.”
Yes, agreed. Groups of three, for reasons I’m too weary and cold-ridden to go into, are a hideous idea.
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87 min Kovacic misses a great chance to seal the match. He made it for himself with some beautiful footwork, shifting the ball one way and then the other to hoodwink a defender in the area. That put him through on goal, but his left-footed shot faded past the far post.
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84 min Now Amallah is booked for dissent, and a number of Morocco players are surrounding the referee, angry that he gave a free-kick when Petkovic was caught in the face by a stray arm. There was a bit of pushing and shoving from the players on both sides before things settled down.
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82 min “That penalty was so obvious,” says Peter Oh. “It’s right there in his name, GVARdiol!
81 min “Kudos to the referee,” says Paul Pooley, “who is clearly trying to see if he can keep his cards in his pocket all the way to the finish.”
Alas, Ounahi opened his mouth in the 69th minute and was booked.
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80 min The intensity of this game has been surprisingly high. It clearly means a lot to both teams, particularly Morocco.
78 min It’s a shame Gvardiol’s World Cup will be chiefly remembered for a Lionel Messi body swerve because he has been fantastic, probably the best defender in the tournament. Croatia would have gone out at the group stage but for his glorious last-ditch tackle on Romelu Lukaku.
77 min You can understand the referee not seeing the foul by Amrabat, as his view was slightly impeded, but for VAR to wave it away is preposterous. State of it.
75 min: Fine save from Livakovic! A cross from the left skims the head of Gvardiol and comes to En-Nesyri, whose close-range shot is superbly saved by Livakovic. Then Hakimi goes down appealing for a penalty after a challenge from Petkovic. That wasn’t a foul, but we’ve just seen a replay of the Gvardiol appeal, and it was one of the clearest penalties of the tournament. Amrabat just legged him up. Chalk up another triumph for VAR.
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74 min Gvardiol rampages into the area, onto a superb angled pass from Orsic, and falls over under a challenge from Amrabat. The referee says no penalty, and the Croatia bench are fuming.
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71 min A dodgy ball from Amrabat goes straight to Vlasic, 40 yards out. He makes a beeline for goal and slashes a long-range drive over the bar. That’s Croatia’s 12th attempt on goal; Morocco, despite some bright attacking play, have had only three.
69 min Ounahi is booked for dissent.
68 min “FIFA should allow unlimited substitutions in consolation games,” says Peter Oh, “so that unused subs can get a run out on the big stage.”
I can’t think of anything more perfectly designed to tip a weary liveblogger over the edge at the end of a long tournament.
67 min Now Jawad El Yamiq is injured, which means Morocco are without five defenders. They have no more on the bench, so Selim Amallah comes on in El Yamiq’s place and the admirable Sofyan Amrabat drops into the defence.
66 min: Double change for Croatia Bruno Petkovic and Mario Pasalic replace Marko Livaja and Lovro Majer.
65 min Hakimi’s lofted cross is headed away well by Sutalo, under pressure from En-Nesyri.
64 min Two changes for Morocco. Sofiane Boufal and the limping Achraf Dari are replaced by Anass Zaroury, the Burnley youngster, and Badr Benoun.
62 min It sounds like Kramaric has a hamstring injury. His team, Hoffenheim, don’t return to Bundesliga action until 21 January so hopefully it won’t affect him too much.
61 min: Croatia substitution Nikola Vlasic replaces Andrej Kramaric, who is in tears as he walks off the field.
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59 min Kramaric is struggling, having pulled something in the act of crossing. The interesting thing is that he was offside, but play continued because of the change in the law. And now look!
57 min This will go to extra-time and penalties if necessary. I know.
56 min: Morocco substitution Azzedine Ounahi, a team of the tournament staple, replaces the impressive teenager Bilal El Khannouss.
55 min Majer hits another wicked cross towards Livaja, who mistimes his volley and does himself a temporary mischief in the process. Majer has a left foot to die for.
53 min Kovacic is tackled just inside the Morocco area, with the ball running on towards Mayer near the byline. He draws Bono and lifts a short-range cross that is cleared.
52 min Boufal’s long pass is chested into the area by En-Nesyri, but Perisic tracks him all the way.
51 min A vicious cross from Majer on the left is shinned past the far post by one of the Moroccan defenders, El Yamiq I think. The referee wrongly gives a goalkick.
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48 min Ziyech, who has moved into a more central position, finds Attiat-Allah in space on the left side of the area, but he can’t quite control the bouncing ball on the stretch.
47 min Orsic almost scores another belter. He cut inside from the left and thrashed a rising drive that took a slight deflection off El Yamiq and rippled the side netting at the near post.
46 min Peep peep! Morocco have made a half-time substitution: Ilias Chair has replaced Abdelhamid Sabiri.
The players are coming back out. And it looks like Achraf Dari is okay to continue.
Mislav Orsic only scores beautiful goals 💥
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) December 17, 2022
Unreal.
📺💻📱 Watch on @BBCOne, @BBCiPlayer and the BBC Sport app.#BBCWorldCup #BBCFootball pic.twitter.com/UCeYHOAhMn
“Seeing the goals and today’s play, one can only imagine what was possible if Dalić had been braver with the lineup,” says Tomislav Chagall. “Oh well.”
Half time: Croatia 2-1 Morocco
That was plenty of fun. Josko Gvardiol and Mislav Orsic scored quite brilliant goals for Croatia either side of Achraf Dari’s equaliser. But poor Dari went down just before the half-time whistle and looks like he’s struggling.
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45 min There will be two added minutes.
Mislav Orsic has restored Croatia’s lead. It looked like they had missed the chance by overplaying, but Kovacic won the ball back on the edge of the D and gave it to Livaja (I think). He flicked it outside to Orsic, who ran round the ball, on the left edge of the area, and floated an exquisite first-time shot across goal with his right foot. It beat the flying Bono, hit the inside of the far post and rebounded into the net.
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GOAL! Croatia 2-1 Morocco (Orsic 42)
Another tremendous goal for Croatia!
40 min Ziyech shoots wide from 30 yards after twisting Modric one way and then the other. When he’s in the mood, Ziyech is just so much fun to watch. In fact, you picked a decent XI from this World Cup of players who aren’t regulars for their clubs.
37 min Ziyech’s wicked inswinging corner from the right is flicked right across the face of goal by En-Nesyri.
35 min Morocco are having a good spell. Ziyech whips a free-kick from the left towards the far post, where Perisic stretches to head clear. That was an important touch because there were a couple of unmarked Moroccan players behind him.
33 min Lovely play from Morocco. Boufal zips infield from the left, plays a one-two with the teenager El Khannouss and is about to shoot when the covering Sutalo knocks the ball off Boufal and behind for a goalkick. The Morocco players are fuming that a corner wasn’t given, but replays show the referee got it right.
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31 min “Good morning from Pittsburgh!” says Eric Peterson. “I consider Belgium to be this recent era’s greatest underachievers - tons of individual talent that never reached its potential as a team - but this game makes me wonder how much fun it would be to go back in time one month and tell folks not only that Group F would provide both contestants in the third-place game, but that neither one would be Belgium. Talk about getting laughed out of the alehouse, huh?”
29 min Hakimi plays a gorgeous one-two with Ziyech on the right, surges into the area but then hits his cross behind En-Nesyri, who was waiting in front of an open goal at the far post. That was a real chance for Morocco.
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28 min Croatia have been the dominant team, with six shots to Morocco’s one I think. Ultimately none of this matters – life, I mean, not the third-place playoff – but it’s enjoyable stuff.
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27 min “Agreed with Steve Wilson being among the very best of our commentators,” says Mark Harrison. “I’ve always thought of him as the natural successor to Barry Davies - fairly understated, but very good at finding the right words for the big moments. His ‘it’s five-nil. FIVE-NIL!?’ in that semi-final in Belo Horizonte comes to mind - it was perfectly judged given both the magnitude and absurdity of the moment. Commentary is hugely subjective of course, but I do greatly prefer him to most.”
Yes, ‘understated’ is the word. Very little ego, knows the value of silence, seems an excellent judge of an incident in the heat of the moment.
24 min Modric makes room for a low left-footed shot from the edge of the area. Bono sees it late and shovels it away unconvincingly, then sprawls across his line to push the loose ball away from Livaja. For a second it looked like Livaja would have an open goal.
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22 min Sorry, been sifting through emails. You haven’t missed anything, unless I missed it, in which case we all did.
18 min Orsic has a shot blocked by his own teammate Kramaric, who then heads straight at Bono. Croatia, so toothless for much of the tournament, look like they are enjoying themselves today.
15 min The goalscorer Dari stretches desperately to stop Livaja’s cross reaching Kramaric in front of goal. Excellent defending. The two teams look right up for this.
13 min And here’s the equaliser.
Two goals in two minutes! 👀
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) December 17, 2022
Morocco equalise straight away against Croatia.
Who said the third place play-off would be boring?!
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11 min I’ve never seen a free-kick routine quite like that. It’s still only the second best training-ground free-kick of the tournament, mind you.
This set-piece was beautiful 😍
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) December 17, 2022
Josko Gvardiol diving like a salmon to put Croatia ahead against Morocco!
📺💻📱 Watch on @BBCOne, @BBCiPlayer and the BBC Sport app.#BBCWorldCup #BBCFootball pic.twitter.com/SqbeMdjMPl
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10 min Orsic cuts inside from the left and thrashes wide of the far post.
Achraf Dari has equalised straight away. Ziyech’s inswinging free-kick was unwittingly looped towards his own goal by the head of Majer, and Dari reacted quickest to head past Livakovic from five yards. It’s his first international goal.
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GOAL! Croatia 1-1 Morocco (Dari 9)
Now that’s what I’m talking about.
The free-kick was 30 yards from goal in the inside-left channel. The left-footed Majer curled it elegantly over the wall towards Perisic, who ran away from goal to meet it and then flicked a superb header back across the face of the area. Gvardiol charged onto the ball, 12 yards out, and powered a spectacular diving header past Bono.
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ONE OF THE GOALS OF THE TOURNAMENT! Croatia 1-0 Morocco (Gvardiol 7)
This is an unbelievably good free-kick from Croatia.
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6 min “Rob, it’s been a pleasure,” says Aaron Roston. “This will almost certainly be my last World Cup as well, at least in this capacity, as I plan on attending the 2026 one. Since this is the consolation game, is this your consolation MBM? I think the biggest upside to this World Cup is the fact that the worker deaths, and half empty stadiums will put the kibosh on Saudi Arabia’s bid.”
I wish I shared your confidence on that! And yep, this is my last MBM of the tournament, unless, say, a horrible accident befalls the great Scott Murray in the next 24 hours.
5 min It’s been a bright start, particularly from the Morocco fans, who are whistling every time Croatia get the ball.
3 min Bono almost scores one of the great own goals! He sliced a routine pass across the penalty area, and the ball ran just past the far post for a Croatia corner.
2 min “Like many Europeans, I don’t know much about Moroccan football history, so I watched sections of the games they played in the 1986 World Cup,” begins Kári Tulinius. “What surprised me is how they play in a remarkably modern style. Instead of the blood and thunder football I associate with the 80s, they played a patient possession game, less reminiscent of other teams of that era than of Spain in 2010. It’s a shame that in the round of 16 they lost to a last-minute goal against West-Germany, because it would’ve been interesting how other teams would’ve been influenced by them. Instead decades passed before the rest of the world caught up with Morocco.”
They played brilliantly in the win over Portugal, and from memory were pretty much the equals of West Germany. Who was the class act in midfield, Aziz Bouderbala?
1 min Peep peep! Croatia get the match under way.
Good news for UK viewers. This chap is right up there with the best; might even be the best.
My 7th World Cup ending at Khalifa today with the 3rd place game. Never been to 19 games in 1 WC before. As a tournament it was better than expected - though nobody would agree with it being the best. Eg: never seen so few fans at a WC. (1/2)
— Steve Wilson (@Wilsonfooty) December 17, 2022
Here come the players. I was going to say it’ll be hard to get up for this game, but I think we all know Sofyan Amrabat will be winning 40/60 balls from the first whistle.
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Here’s a question for you, and no cheating. According to the very detailed WhoScored.com data, who has been the best player at the World Cup? He (I’ve said too much) has a tournament rating of 8.15, 0.01 ahead of old Lionel.
“Unless I’m hallucinating (perfectly possible), weren’t you just on the OBO in Karachi?” writes Saurya Chakraborty. “Is it possible (and can we request for this) for you to do the whole OBO for Australia/South Africa, take up the Karachi OBO post-lunch and then do the final tomorrow? I’d love it if by the end you were seriously discussing the magic of Messi’s mystery spin in Brisbane.”
I can promise you I’ve typed worse at 4am during a 2009-10 tour of Bangladesh.
The BBC have Croatia playing a back three, with Orsic and Perisic as wing-backs. Do we care about tactics in a third-place playoff?
“Thank you for your coverage...” says Jeff Sachs. “Must never forget the worker deaths that made this competition possible.”
I suspect, even if Lionel Messi scores 12 goals tomorrow, it’ll still be the first thing many people remember about Qatar 2022. And while we’re here, thanks to all of you who’ve emailed and tweeted our writers throughout the tournament.
“Though I’ve lived in the UK for many years now, I hail from Kannur, a small town in northern Kerala,” writes Ramesh Nair. “It was lovely to see Kerala’s love for football mentioned in the Guardian, though I would not lump it in with the rest of India. Be it politics, sport, development indices, food habits (we eat a lot of beef) or our unfortunate weakness for excessive amounts of hard-liquor, Kerala is very different to the rest of India. And that extends to its rich and long standing international football fan-culture as well, with perhaps the exception of West Bengal.
“It’s a football crazy state (especially the northern half) and has long had massive fan associations for (primarily) Brazil and Argentina, but other teams as well, including more recently England! The biggest ever football related event in Kannur was Maradona visiting Kannur in autumn 2012. It remains one of the only two places that Maradona has visited in India and over 50,000 fans arrived to see him in Kannur that day. Kerala even observed a two-day official mourning period when Maradona died. He was and is a legend in these parts.
‘Harry Maguire, your defense is terriyfing’
Rate it, rank it
“So, how do we rate this World Cup on the level of footballing spectacle?” wonders Ben Kybett. “Good, but not great? The climax of the group stage was thrilling, the quarter finals provided some great thrills and spills, and Morocco have been wonderful.
“Hopefully we’ll have an exciting final between two tough, talented teams. But perhaps a few too many one-sided and/or drab knockout ties? No ding-dong high-scoring classics or heavyweight epics? A few early morning 0-0s in the group stages didn’t help either. For me, last year’s Euros, despite all the weirdness that it involved, is probably the best tournament in my lifetime. But then, I’m in my late 20s, so what do I know?”
Yeah, I’d say it’s been somewhere between decent and good, on the field that is. There’s an argument it’s the best World Cup since 1998, but anything beyond that is a reach in my opinion. Its main virtues have been great drama, moments and particularly stories, but the actual football has been no better than middling and it hasn’t had a great match or a great team.
All that said, it’s quite hard to judge a World Cup until you have a bit of distance from it, six months or so. But I’m sure not everyone agrees, and nor should they.
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Team news
As you’d expect, both managers have made a number changes – five for Croatia, three for Morocco. Luka Modric stays in the team for what will almost certainly (I said almost) be his last World Cup game. A few of the injured Morocco players are named among the subs, including the captain Romain Saiss. Their starting XI includes the uncapped teenager Bilal El Khannouss.
Croatia (possible 4-3-3) Livakovic; Stanisic, Sutalo, Gvardiol, Perisic; Majer, Modric, Kovacic; Orsic, Kramaric, Livaja.
Substitutes: Grbic, Ivusic, Barisic, Erlic, Lovren, Brozovic, Vlasic, Pasalic, Petkovic, Budimir, Sosa, Vida, Juranovic, Sucic, Jakic.
Morocco (possible 4-3-3) Bono; Hakimi, Dari, El Yamiq, Attiat-Allah; Sabiri, Amrabat, El Khannouss; Ziyech, En-Nesyri, Boufal.
Substitutes: Aguerd, Saiss, Ounahi, Hamdallah, Zaroury, Chair, El Kajoui, Aboukhlal, Amallah, Ezzalzouli, Cheddira, Tagnaouti, Benoun, Jabrane.
Referee Abdulrahman Al-Jassim (Qatar)
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Croatia have happy memories of the third-place playoff. In 1998 they beat the Netherlands 2-1; more importantly, Davor Suker scored his sixth goal of the tournament, which gave him the Golden Boot ahead of Gabriel Batistuta and Christian Vieri. Look out also for an, ahem, unique celebration from Bolo Zenden.
Wait, come back
Preamble
Hello and welcome to live coverage of the third-place playoff between Croatia and Morocco. To some, this is the most pointless game in world football; to others, it’s an essential part of the rhythm of the World Cup’s final week, a gentle little palate cleanser before the final.
On this occasion, it’ll also be a celebration of the underdogs who have enriched Qatar 2022. Croatia and Morocco drew 0-0 in their opening game, managing only four shots on target between them; had you said, at the final whistle, that they would meet again in the bronze-medal match, you’d have been laughed out of the alehouse.
On reflection, Croatia’s might have been the greater achievement. At times they have looked like a 2018 tribute act, minus a frontman, and it was a miracle of resilience that they lasted as long as they did. For a county of four million people to reach a final and a semi-final in successive World Cups is arguably – pound for pound, or rather person for person – the greatest achievement since Uruguay won it in 1950.
Morocco, by contrast, looked like they still had plenty in the tank (the fit players, anyway) in their stirring defeat to France on Wednesday. It’s no exaggeration to say they have given us one of the great World Cup stories. This is a chance to celebrate them, and Croatia, and the greatest World Cup ever (sic), and anything else you fancy toasting on a Saturday afternoon.
Kick off 3pm GMT, 4pm in Zagreb and Rabat, 6pm in Ar-Rayyan.
