The Croatian national football team beat Canada 4:1 in the second match of the World Cup in Qatar and are on the brink of qualifying for the later stages of the tournament. But what do Croatia need to do in their last match against Belgium to guarantee qualification?

At the moment Croatia sit top of the group, Group F, with 4 points from their first two games. And Canada have now been eliminated from the World Cup after their defeat against Croatia and sit bottom of the group with 0 points. This means that three teams, Croatia, Morocco and Belgium are fighting it to get out of the group.

In the final round of games in Group F on Thursday, 1 December, Canada take on Morocco and Croatia will play Belgium.

For Croatia a point against Belgium is enough to qualify for the next round, this would give Croatia five points and Morocco could have more points and top the group if they defeat Canada. Croatia would top the group if the defeated Belgium and Morocco failed to defeat Canada with a large enough goal difference.

Croatia could theoretically lose to Belgium in the last round, but then they need a defeat of Morocco against Canada.

The first criterion for determining the order in the group is the goal difference, then the number of goals scored and only then the ratio between them.

At the end of the group competition, Croatia can only tie with Morocco, with whom they played 0:0 in the 1st round. If those two teams finished with the same number of points, the same goal difference and the same number of goals scored, the final ranking would be determined by the fair play criterion.