Croatia faces Ghana in a decisive final Group L matchday needing a draw to secure a place in the last 32, relying on a historically strong record against African opponents.
England and Ghana lead the group with four points each, while Croatia has three points and Panama has been eliminated.
The squad has accumulated three wins and one draw against African opponents at the World Cup since 2014, which includes defeating Morocco in the 2022 third-place play-off.
Despite dropping points in a 2-0 defeat against England, Croatia managed to stay in contention after securing a narrow 1-0 victory over Panama courtesy of a 54th-minute goal from Ante Budimir.
Perisic and Dalic on the Challenge
“That’s something that we commented on,” said attacker Ivan Perisic.
“And we played against many teams in the past 10 years, and all of the results were positive.
So I believe that this is going to be the same this time as well, and that we will be playing a very good match, just like we did against the other teams.”
Perisic, who is 37, expressed uncertainty regarding whether Ghana would utilize the low-block defensive strategy typically associated with teams managed by Carlos Queiroz.
“They are a very good team,” said Perisic. “Very compact.
Perhaps they played the lower block in the past two matches.
Given that, maybe they might be changing for tomorrow or something, but we have to be ready for both options.”
“But yes, we’re focusing on ourselves and our game and what we need to do.
And we need to be a lot better than we were in the past two matches.”
With 40-year-old captain Luka Modric anchoring the midfield, manager Zlatko Dalic acknowledged that the team must address recent performance issues and frequent turnovers.
“We need to raise the level of our play,” said Dalic. “We’re not what Croatia can be.
So we haven’t shown the best we can, but tomorrow is the opportunity to do so.
We never made so many mistakes in some of the passes or when we were in the possession of the ball.”
“This is where we had the force and we were really strong, but we seem to be losing the ball easily.
We need to be quicker and we need to raise the level of concentration.”
