The last game on Saturday features two highly ambitious squads who have never met before in international competitions – Croatia and Nigeria.
Kaliningrad Stadium will be the venue and 21:00 will be the time when Croatia and Nigeria face off for the first time in the 2018 World Cup in Russia. It will be energy versus patience, skill versus technique and a matchup of two different concepts. The Croatians are the favorites, as they have two of the best midfielders in the world sharing the same pitch. Of course, I’m talking about Luka Modric and Ivan Rakitic, rivals in Spain, but colleagues in their national team jersey. They will be the ones who should take over the central area of the pitch in Kaliningrad and give Croatia the decisive edge.
The day Nigeria defeated Argentina (November 14, 2017) was the day an entire nation started believing they could win the World Cup. This Nigeria squad is good, but not that good. It incorporates several quality players such as Victor Moses, John Obi Mikel, Wilfred Ndidi, Alex Iwobi, Ahmed Musa and Kelechi Iheanacho who don’t seem to be on the same page just yet. It is why more recent friendlies have not gone according to plan and why I have doubts that the Nigerians can disable Croatia.
“Vatreni” are a much more complete team, starting from the back where Monaco’s Danijel Subasic protects the goal and where Liverpool’s Dejan Lovren protects him. Mateo Kovacic and Marcelo Brozovic are two more phenomenal midfielders to add to Modric and Rakitic, while the attack is led by undervalued “Super Mario” Mandzukic, who always comes up big in the clutch. Ivan Perisic and Andrej Kramaric are a couple more players worthy of attention.
Croatia could have this game in the bag fairly quickly if manager Zlatko Dalic shows some courage and decides to attack right away. However, I doubt he’ll do that, allowing Nigeria to settle down and make life harder for its opponent than it should be. The Nigerians are fast and can be deadly on counter attacks, which is why Dalic will not be willing to take the risk. As a consequence, the contest could very well in a draw, although it shouldn’t, since Croatia is the better team.
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