In advance, the English-Croatian match on Wednesday evening, Hungarian time, promised to be one of, if not the biggest, event of this year’s World Cup. The Croatians, who finished third in four years, saw new talents as well as the old ones, and the Englishmen, who were eliminated in the quarter-finals at the time, came with Thomas Tuchel, who had a much more attacking approach than Gareth Southgate, after a change of coach, to prove that they can overcome their own shadow. In the end, the match turned out to be just as exciting as you could expect, and the English came out on top of the very entertaining and exciting give-and-take, winning 4-2.
The English defenders fell asleep a little right at the beginning, they passed in the grip of the very aggressive attacking Croatians until they finally kicked the ball into the corner. Josip Šutalo came to the ball, but his shot did not hit the goal. However, this could soon be forgotten, because on the other side, after another corner, the English got a penalty, Luka Modrić tried to clear it, but he arrived at the wrong pace and kicked Madueke instead of the ball. The penalty was shot by Harry Kane and missed – Dominik Livaković felt the halting figure, threw himself in the right direction and was able to save.
However, his stop was good because he jumped a Croatian player inside the penalty area prematurely, and the goalkeeper also moved from the goal line, the French referee repeated the penalty because of the latter. Kane stood there for this as well and bombarded the ball in the same direction without stopping, and Livaković threw himself in the other direction, so he had no chance to defend. The match continued at a high pace even after the goal, the Croatians even reached the English goal on the other side, but Petar Musa did not reach the shot after the dribble. The Croatian striker appealed for a penalty kick, and the referee finally revoked the awarded corner, as it turned out that the ball went off Musa.
The drinking break broke the momentum, for the first time the Croatians were able to pass in a slightly more organized manner in the opponent’s half, but this did not have much result. Both teams played with a lot of mistakes, they often lost the ball, and the Croatians were able to take advantage of one of these. In the 36th minute, Luka Vušković stepped decisively and passed to Martin Baturina, who passed the ball to Petar Sučić. Sučić beat his defender with a great shot inside the penalty area, then passed back to Baturina, who was coming from momentum, who scored a huge goal from outside the penalty area, from a catch into the long range, even though Jordan Pickford was stretching in vain, he couldn’t reach it.
However, the Croatians could not be happy for long, six minutes later, Declan Rice shot a corner into the middle, and the Croatians missed Kane, who was able to explode onto the pass and head in a big goal. Kane already ensured that with his first goal Like David Beckham, score in three World Cupswith this he scored his tenth World Cup goal overallwith which he managed Gary Lineker. This did not deter the Croatians, however, and although Mario Pašalić’s long-range shot went wide in the first half, a minute later he gave a perfect ball to Ivan Perišić, who headed it in front of the arriving Musa, who only had to flick the ball into the goal.
Petar Musa scores Croatia’s second goal – Photo: Francois Nel / Getty Images via AFP
In the second half, it soon became clear that the game was not going to sit down, Jude Bellingham scored a goal after two minutes, after Anderson’s fantastic start, he dangled on the right wing and continued until he shot at him from a slightly sharp angle, and the ball, which also bounced off the Croatian foot, bounced off the far goalpost into the goal. A minute later, Bellingham was in position again and shot on goal, but this time Livaković was able to save. The Croatian team couldn’t really defend the following corner, but they didn’t get a goal, Nico O’Reilly headed wide of the goal. In the 52nd minute, the Croatian goalkeeper had to save Rice’s shot.
And the English were able to increase this as well, they literally nailed the Croatians to their goal and worked out the huge situations one after the other, and the corners after them. However, they did not score another goal, because Livaković, who may have made a little mistake with the third goal, made a series of bravura saves and single-handedly kept his team in the game during this period. Luka Modrić couldn’t handle this pace, he was replaced by Mateo Kovačić in the 58th minute, but around the 60th minute, the momentum of the English team dropped a bit, so the Croatians started this attack with a conceded goal, and after that the match settled down a bit, until the drink break, not much happened.
After the drinking break, Livaković had to be alert again, then Pickford had to do it twice. In the 85th minute, however, the English decided the match, they led a counterattack beautifully, Bukayo Saka passed to Marcus Rashford at the end, who scored a big goal after a shot. From there, there was no way back for the Croatians, and this was also visible in the picture of the match, after a corner, Guardiol tried a shot, but the ball got stuck in Kane, who threw himself into it. The score remained 4-2, the English showed that they really have to be reckoned with, and the Croatians showed that they could party even with this English team. But only for a while.
