Croatia continue their 2018 World Cup adventure today against Denmark in the first knock out round. In Nizhny Novgorod tonight Croatia will play for a place in the quarter finals and the praise for the style of football that Croatia have been playing so far has been coming from all over the football globe.

Due to their impressive performances and results, including a 3 – 0 win over Argentina, Croatia is riding on a crest of a wave of confidence and will go into the match tonight as favourites. The Danes finished second in their group, with France topping the group, and proved tough opponents. In fact, both Denmark and Croatia have yet to concede a goal from open play, only from the penalty spot. If Croatia are successful in passing Denmark tonight it will be only the second time in the country’s history that they have reached a World Cup quarter finals.

And Croatia’s dominant midfield, with Luka Modric from Real Madrid leading the line, stingy defence and powerful strike force has made them outsiders to actually win the tournament.

Croatian fans on a Russian adventure - Photo - Boris Kovacev / CROPIX

The UK newspaper, The Guardian, placed Croatia second on their “World Cup 2018 power rankings” list behind Brazil. - Given that manner in which they sailed through the most difficult group, Croatia are arguably the team of the tournament so far. They have rarely been spectacular but look composed, organised and unflustered, with their biggest stars stepping up in the thumping win over Argentina. A meeting with Spain in the last eight looks likely and Zlatko Dalic’s side cannot be ruled out of doing something special – writes The Guardian on Croatia’s chances.

One thing is for sure the Croatian supporters in the stadium tonight will far outnumber the Danes. According to estimates between 4,000 and 5,000 Danish fans have bought tickets, but the number of Croatian red and white fans will be three times that number.