Croatia continued their impressive World Cup 2018 campaign with a relatively comfortable win over a determined Iceland team in their final Group D match and they are picking up praise from all over the world for the way they have been playing.
The former Manchester United and England defender, Phil Neville, who is now the coach of the England women’s national team commented for the BBC that “I like the style of play. They are solid at the back, the three in midfield control the game and Mario Mandzukic is an animal up front.” He added that “Croatia have probably been the best team in the competition. In terms of consistent performances they have been the best team in the competition. If Denmark play like they did today, I can't see them beating Croatia.” And the former Manchester United star is not the only pundit talking up Croatia’s chances at the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
A midfield that features Luka Modric, the captain, from Real Madrid, Ivan Rakitic, from Barcelona, Marcelo Brozovic, from Inter Milan and Ivan Perisic also from Inter Milan have so far dominated the group. And with Mario Mandukic from Juventus and Ante Rebic from Eintracht Frankfurt, they have power and goals up front. The defence is led by Dejan Lovren, from Liverpool, and Domagoj Vida, from Beşiktaş. In fact, from the 23 players picked to play at this year’s World Cup only two play in the Croatian league, the third choice goalkeeper, Dominik Livaković, at Dinamo Zagreb and Filip Bradaric at Rijeka. Six players come from the Serie A, the Italian league, and four players from La Liga in Spain.
The BBC’s South American expert, Tim Vickery, also heaped praise on Croatia, “What a midfield Croatia have. They are the team who could do serious damage. I saw them at Anfield when they played Brazil and in the first half Brazil couldn't get out of their own half.”
Croatia now face Denmark in the first match of the final stages on Sunday the 1st of July in Nizhny Novgorod. Denmark, at least according to the FIFA World rankings, should be slight favourites for the game as they are ranked 12th in the world and Croatia are in 20th position. However, the experts and the pundits, and the bookmakers, clearly have Croatia as the favourites to progress past the Danes.
If you fancy a little flutter on Croatia winning the World Cup the odds have dropped and now range from 12/1 to 14/1 however they are strong favourites with the bookmakers to beat Denmark and progress into the quarter finals in Sochi where they will face the winners of the Spain and Russia match.
