Croatia v Morocco: History points to play-off goals

Saiss is everything for Morocco

Morocco’s defence was instrumental in them becoming the first African nation to reach the World Cup semi-finals.

Prior to facing France, the only goal they had conceded was an own goal in a 2-1 win against Canada.

Coach Walid Regragui admitted his players were on their “last legs” for the semi-final though and the decision to name captain Romain Saiss and Nayef Aguerd in the starting line-up backfired.

West Ham defender Aguerd, who had been struggling with a thigh injury, was replaced by Achraf Dari after the warm-up, while Saiss limped off 20 minutes into the tie.

“Until the last minute we weren’t sure, we waited until the last minute to see if Romain could play,” said Regragui. “He is such an important player for us, our captain.

“Nayef was recovering from flu and wanted to play as well, I thought it was best to play with three defenders so they didn’t have too much to run at.

“We made a lot of mistakes and then Romain had to go off and we changed to a four-man defence and actually played better.

“I have no regrets about the decision. Nayef’s absence was difficult and all of these little things meant we got off to quite a poor start, you learn from your mistakes, I do as well. If all our squad was fit we could have caused them even more problems.

“At a World Cup, this was one step too far, not in terms of quality or tactics but physically, we had too many players at 60-70 per cent.”

That adds to our belief that Croatia can dominate this game and 15/4 for them to win by more than one goal is added to our Croatia v Morocco betting tips.

Go for goals with pressure off

History suggests this could be an entertaining game with the third-place play-off traditional featuring plenty of goals.

In the last 10 editions there have been 38 goals scored in normal time and over 2.5 goals paid out in all of them until four years ago when England lost 2-0 to Belgium.

The goalless draw earlier in the tournament might suggest otherwise but with the pressure off, this fixture will have a very different feel and over 2.5 goals appeals at 17/20 in the Croatia v Morocco betting odds.

Early goals are a feature of this game too with six of the last seven having a goal inside the first 20 minutes and the deadlock was broken in the first 10 minutes in four of them.

Croatia are 6/1 to be leading after 15 minutes and they are 15/1 to score in the first 10 minutes.

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All odds and markets correct as of date of publication