Since the rise of Croatia in 1998, the two teams have faced each other five times in international matches, and since the first draw, the order has been Argentina -> Croatia -> Argentina -> Croatia winning. This is the sixth time that the two teams have met, and the last World Cup clash between Messi and Modric.
The first half of the match was dominated by Croacia, but despite controlling the ball in the center of the field, they were unable to break through the Argentinean defense. I have to praise the Argentinean defense strategy, which was clearly based on the previous loss against the Netherlands and Croacia's attacking pattern. The problem with Argentina's defense is that it is not tall enough and can be easily overpowered by overhead kicks, which is how Croesus broke the game against Japan. In this game, Argentina is obviously targeting the two wings of the defense, in Croecia will be divided into two wings, will see the Argentine players to go to the front of the pack, to limit the route of the pass, so that Croecia can only choose to return the ball to the back field or to the middle of the field to penetrate the breakthrough with the ground cooperation, once the threat of Croecia's two-way hanging in the high-altitude ball, the Croecia's middle of the field is not strong enough to break through the strikers, so Croecia has more than half of the possession of the ball, but also the ball will not be able to break through. Croesus had more than half of the ball, but could not get the advantage of offense on the field. Meanwhile, the left back Sosa, who has not performed well in this game, often made mistakes in the field to pull back the ball or made mistakes in converting the ball, which made the attack of Croesusia look weak.
The most important turning point of the match was the mistake made by the Crocs' defense in the 32nd minute of the match. The Crocs' backfield was sandwiched between Alvarez and Messi in a way that either of them could have attacked if they had the ball. However, Lovren made a mistake in his position and did not maintain a parallel line with the other two onside line, which gave Alvarez a chance to be successful in countering the offside line. As mentioned in the pre-match analysis of Japan [Kada World Cup], Japan vs. Croatsia pre-match prediction, Croatsia is not good at dealing with high-speed sprinting, and Croatsia wouldn't have appeared in the match against Belgium without Lukaku's goalkeeping error. Alvarez's high-speed sprinting Gvardiol could not keep up with, making the failed pinch turn into a one-touch opportunity, Livakovic in the process of the last resort of striking on the foul on Alvarez gave Argentina 12-yard ball break the opportunity, Messi also not to live up to the expectations of kicking the leading goal. Many people mentioned that the 12-yarder was in favor of Argentina, but in fact, strictly speaking, the referee was more helpful to Croacia. If you have watched the professional soccer league, you can know that when the goalkeeper does not touch the ball when blocking a one-touch player, this kind of foul is very common to get the red penalty package (red penalty package means a red card + a 12-yarder), and if Livakovic gets a red card, Croacia will be in a 10-11 situation and fall behind. If Livakovic gets a red card, Croesus will be in a 10-11 situation with a one-goal deficit, which is not good enough for Croesus.
Lovren with a poor standup.
Livakovic draws a foul.
As mentioned in the pre-match analysis article [Cada World Cup], the two runners-up of the match - Argentina vs Croacia, Croacia almost always concedes the first goal this year, but only concedes one goal, so despite the one-goal deficit, Croacia is still able to stabilize their position. However, the second goal conceded five minutes later was the key to the victory. The second goal was conceded from a corner kick, which was a tactical corner kick, so when Argentina took another tactical corner kick in the 38th minute, they were already prepared for it and intercepted the ball directly, and because corner kicks are usually taken by tall center backs who will go forward to fight for the point, therefore, with Alvarez's speed, the Crocs' defense couldn't make adjustments in time, and with a little bit of luck, Crocs were still able to clear the ball. With the speed of Alvarez, the Crocia defense had no time to adjust, and with some luck, the ball was returned to Alvarez's feet, leading to the second goal.
