Four-star Croatia come back in style, Canada are going home
Dalic’s side turned in clinical, professional performance to get their first win of the Qatar World Cup
Canada are out of the World Cup after the 1-4 defeat to Croatia and the tournament will miss their songs. For two games, Doha has heard their fans in red bounce in metros and on stadium concourses.
“Alphonso Davies, Alphonso Davies,” is how their ode to the Bayern Munich player begins and references his curly hair. After “I love you so, Alphonso Davies,” the singer asks Davies to make “his babies”. Another speaks of Canada landing in Doha “drinking Coca-cola” and “going all the way.” Having done their routine in the metro to Khalifa Stadium on Sunday, three Canadians asked “where are the Croats?” Spotting a father-son, both with Modric on their backs, they said: “Please don’t score against us. For 36 years we have had nothing.”
Davies gave them something so early in the game that neither Canada nor Croatia could believe what had happened. Goalkeeper Milan Borjan played to Cyle Larin who found Tajin Buchanan on the right. The right-side attacker arced in a cross and Davies attacked the ball climbing ahead of Croatia right back Josip Juranvoc to score with a header.
“Let’s go Canada,” reverberated across the massive Khalifa Stadium, one of the oldest in the city. To have scored the country’s first World Cup goal days after missing a penalty and that too against the team that finished second in the last iteration gave Canada’s frontline trio of Davis, Larin and Buchanan a reason to push for
more and leave Croatia rattled. Canada were playing passes in their front third in a manner that belied their lack of experience at this level.
Croatia take control
Gradually though, Croatia got a foothold on the game. In their exuberance to attack, Canada began to leave spaces in the midfield that gave Croatia a chance to take control. Andrej Kramaric was marginally offside and then Marko Livaja’s shot was saved by Borjan. One
minute later, in the 36th, ball off Josip Juranovioc Kramaric equalised. who then found
Ivan Perisic played an Livaja. With a full inside pass that wrongfooted goal to aim for, Livaja the defence and rifled a shot to Borjan’s had Kramaric running right. Soon Kramaric into space. The 1899 Dhiman Sarkar blasted over Hoffenheim player shot In Qatar and before they went past Borjan into the far in at half-time, Croatia post side netting. When had shown who’s Marko Livaja made it 2in boss. the 44th minute, Canada coach John heads dropped for those Herdman had said on in black shirts. Croatia television that he had rode their luck after Kamal Miller told his boys that they slipped in trying to get the “belonged here” after the performance
against Belgium, one that Mexico coach Gerard ‘Tata’ Martino had said was pure class, and that they would “F Croatia.” This led to a Croatian tabloid printing a picture of a naked Herdman with a maple leaf covering his private parts. And Perisic and coach Zlatko Dalic saying that they didn’t agree with Herdman’s choice of words. Perisic had even said he couldn’t wait for the match to begin. Luka Modric and Riche Larya once clashed needing Uruguayan referee Andres Matonte’s intervention.
Jonathan Osorio’s shot curled away agonisingly for Canada early in the second half and Jonathan David to tried from range but Croatia were running the game. Kramaric was denied by Borjan before he made it 3-1 in the 70th minute before a horrendous error by Miller led to Mislav Orsic and Lovro Majer against Borjan. Orsic let Majer do the honours in the fourth minute of secondhalf stoppage time.
After two games, Canada have zero points but the other three teams go into the final set of games knowing they have a chance to stay beyond the group league.