The match to be played at Khalifa Stadium will start at 18.00. Qatari referee Abdulrahman Al Jassim will lead the fight.
Croatia and Morocco were in the same group at the World Cup in Qatar. The two teams that faced each other in the first match of Group F left the field in a goalless draw.
Romain Saiss, who is injured in Morocco, will not be able to play in this fight.
If Croatia wins against Morocco, it will finish third in the world for the second time after 1998.
Croatia missed the final chance by losing 3-0 to Argentina in the semi-finals. Croatia started their World Cup adventure with a Morocco draw, beating Canada 4-1 in the second match. In the last match, the Croatians drew a goalless draw with Belgium and finished the group in second place with 5 points.
Croatia, which beat the leader of Group E, Japan in the last 16 rounds, with penalties in the match whose regular time and overtime ended 1-1, eliminated Brazil on penalties in the quarter-finals and made its mark in the semi-finals.
Playing in the semi-finals for the first time in its history, Morocco lost 2-0 to France and could not advance to the final. The surprise team of the tournament, Morocco, marked the 2022 World Cup, which started with a goalless draw with Croatia. “Atlas Lions”, who emerged as the leader of the group by beating Belgium 2-0 and Canada 2-1, defeated Spain 3-0 on penalties in the last 16 rounds.
Sending Portugal home with a score of 1-0 in the quarter-finals, Morocco achieved great success by becoming the first African country to reach the semi-finals in the history of the tournament.
It is the match in which the 1st and 2nd of the F group will meet for the second time in the tournament. The first match ended 0-0 in the group stage. If the match goes to penalties, it will be a duel between the two most popular goalkeepers of the tournament.
About The Match
- Croatia, who drew 0-0 in their previous match against Morocco at the 2022 World Cup, played the match in which they had the fewest shots in the history of the tournament (5).
- Croatia has scored in all three matches against African representatives at the World Cup, facing Cameroon (4-0 in 2014), Nigeria (2-0 in 2018) and Morocco (0-0 in 2022).
- None of the previous 19 third-place matches in the World Cup went to penalties, with only one overtime period played in the process (1986; France vs Belgium). European representatives have won the last 10 third-place matches played in the tournament.
- Croatia, who will be appearing in the World Cup for the second time in the third-place match, previously beaten the Netherlands 2-1 in 1998.
- Morocco has already secured the best ranking in a tournament in the history of the World Cup.
- Croatia, who lost 3-0 to Argentina in the semi-final match, had allowed this number of goals in the previous five matches at the 2022 World Cup. The European team also has given their opponents the most shooting opportunities in this tournament (75).
- Morocco, who lost 2-0 to France in the semi-final match, surpassed the number of goals conceded in the previous five matches at the 2022 World Cup (1). The African representative aims to become the eighth team to score in five different matches in a tournament: the Netherlands (1974), Italy (1990 & 2006), Brazil (1994), France (1998), Germany (2002) & Spain (2010).
- Luka Modric may be the third man after the age of 37 to make seven appearances in a World Cup (Peter Shilton in 1990 & Dino Zoff in 1982).
- Ivan Perisic (6), one of the two top scorers for Croatia at the World Cup, wants to single-handedly achieve the record he shares with Davor Suker.
- Among the players who have made at least 10 steal attempts at the 2022 World Cup, the player with the highest success percentage is Moroccan midfielder Azzedine Ounahi (77%; 10/13).
Results of the last 5 matches played by Croatia
| 27.11.2022 | Croatia | 4 – 1 | Canada |  |
| 01.12.2022 | Croatia | 0 – 0 | Belgium |  |
| 05.12.2022 | Japan | 1 – 1 | Croatia | |
| 09.12.2022 | Croatia | 1 – 1 | Brazil | |
| 13.12.2022 | Argentina | 3 – 0 | Croatia |  |
Results of the last 5 matches played by Morocco
| 27.11.2022 | Belgium | 0 – 2 | Morocco | |
| 01.12.2022 | Canada | 1 – 2 | Morocco | |
| 06.12.2022 | Morocco | 0 – 0 | Spain | |
| 10.12.2022 |  Morocco | 1 – 0 | Portugal | |
| 14.12.2022 | France | 2 – 0 | Morocco | |
Qatari referee Abdulrahman Al Jassim will lead the fight
He was one of the referees for the 2017 FIFA U-20 World Cup in South Korea. Al-Jassim was appointed to be a Video Assistant Referee for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia. Al-Jassim was also appointed to be a referee at the 2019 AFC Asian Cup in the United Arab Emirates. He was also the 2020 AFC Champions League Final referee. In June 2019 it was announced that Al-Jassim would officiate in the 2019 CONCACAF Gold Cup as part of a referee exchange program between CONCACAF and the AFC, which had previously seen Mexican referee César Arturo Ramos in the 2019 AFC Asian Cup. The FIFA Referees Committee appointed Abdulrahman for the 2019 FIFA Club World Cup in Qatar on 14 November as part of an all-Qatari trio of officials. They officiated the final between Liverpool and Flamengo at the Khalifa International Stadium in Doha.
Khalifa International Stadium
This multi-purpose stadium, with its state-of-the-art infrastructure and facilities, showcases Qatar’s commitment to sports.
Officially opened in 2017 following extensive renovation, the International (or National) Khalifa Stadium first opened its doors in 1976 and is the oldest stadium in Qatar and the first 2022 FIFA World Cup™ tournament venue. The stadium has hosted events such as the Asian Games in 2006, the AFC Asian Cup in 2007 and the Persian Gulf Cups in 1976, 1992, 2004 and 2019.
Home to sports and sports medicine facilities, research and training centres, this stadium is housed inside Doha Sports City Home, which has made Qatar a true sports destination.
The stadium, which officially reopened in 2017 following an extensive redevelopment project, features an energy-efficient lighting system and plumbing, as well as smart cooling technology that reduces energy consumption.
Khalifa International is the first stadium in the world to be awarded a four-star rating by the Global Sustainability Assessment System (GSAS). The stadium’s developers have used state-of-the-art sustainability practices in design, construction and operations to minimize the stadium’s ecological footprint.
Moroccan National Team Coach Walid Regragui
“Every match is important to us. We aim to win. We want to improve our ranking in FIFA by being third in the world. It will be extraordinary for us to finish third in the World Cup. It would be great to return to our country with a medal. We want to pave the way for a better future for Moroccan football.
A right and just move. But that doesn’t change anything anymore. We should have been given a penalty in that game and Boufal should not have been shown the yellow card.”
