Morocco, who entered the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 ranked 22, will face Croatia (with a pre-tournament rank of 12) in the third-place play-off at Khalifa International Stadium at 6 p.m. tonight. This is another chance for Morocco to end their dream run in the world’s premier event in style.
Just before the big game, the third-place play-off sets the eliminated semifinalists against one another, giving the third and fourth-best teams in the World Cup a chance to try to finish behind the winners and also claim individual bronze medals.
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For impressive Morocco, like their semifinals against France, this is uncharted terrain while for Croatia – the beaten finalists last time – this would be business as usual. In Group F at Qatar 2022 they played out a draw without scoring but with the scalps of Belgium, Canada, Spain and Portugal after that match the Atlas Lions can very well pull off another surprise before they bow out.
In addition to their runners-up trophy of 2018 (after going down to France in the final), Croatia have once won a third-place play-off. That was at 1998 France when they beat the Netherlands 2-1 having been defeated by the eventual champions Les Bleus 2-1 in the semi-finals earlier.
Germany (earlier West Germany) is the nation with the most number of third-place finishes. Germany have won four third-place matches in the history of the World Cup. They won it in 1934, 1970, 2006
and 2010.
They are followed by a number of teams with two titles each – Brazil (1938, 1978), France (1958, 1986), Sweden (1950, 1994) and Poland (1974, 1982). The other teams to have emerged third best at the World Cup are Italy (1990), the Netherlands (2014), Austria (1954), Portugal (1966), Belgium (2018), United States (1930), Chile (1962) and Turkey (2002).
In addition to giving teams who are eliminated in the last-four stage a chance to go home with something to show, third-place play-offs have on occasions helped players go for individual glory.
In the 1998 play-off between Croatia and the Netherlands striker Davor Suker scored the winner for Croatia who prevailed 2-1. The Real Madrid striker’s shot on target won him the Adidas Golden Shoe (now Boot) outright with six goals as he became the top scorer of the tournament.
In 1990 when Italy beat England 2-1, Salvatore Schillaci took to the field against England level with Czechia’s Tomas Skuhravy on five goals in the tournament’s scoring charts. Schillaci who was affectionately known as ‘Toto’ was brought down in the area by Paul Parker when scores were level at 1-1. He slotted the ball beyond England shot-stopper Peter Shilton to win the Adidas Golden Shoe outright, as well as the Golden Ball (awarded to the best player of the World Cup).
However, the Croatia vs Morocco play-off this time will not have any bearing on the awards as the Adidas Golden Boot award will be decided in the final as Argentina’s Lionel Messi and France’s Kylian Mbappe are the leading goal scorers with five each.
The top scorer for Croatia this time is Andrej Kramaric with a brace while for Morocco Youssef En-Nesyri too has two. The two teams’ lack of action in front of the goal is understandable as in Qatar 2022 most of the time they thrived in defensive play.
The third-place play-off in the 1958 World Cup was won by France who beat West Germany 6-3 which pundits call the most thrilling bronze medal match to date.
‘Les Bleus were armed with Just Fontaine who had already scored a record-breaking nine goals at the tournament and used the play-off to etch his names into the record books forever, notching a brace in the first half to give France a 3-1 lead, before repeating the feat in the second to carry his side to an incredible 6-3 victory,’ FIFA+ said in article on some of the most memorable bronze medal matches.
Fontaine’s tally of 13 goals is a single World Cup record and one which leaves him in fourth on the all-time scoring charts for the competition.
When teams come to the third-place play-offs especially after gruelling knock-out stage matches they can be short of energy as well as nursing injuries to key players. So, third-place games can be pretty fun and entertaining with lots of goals.
For example, the Netherlands beat Brazil 3-0 in 2014, and Germany beat Uruguay 3-2 in 2010. In 2002, Turkey beat host South Korea 3-2, reportedly in what’s perhaps one of the more exciting matchups over the last two decades. Hakan Sukur scored in the first 11 seconds, the fastest World Cup goal ever, to give Turkey a 1-0 lead and Korea tied the game in the ninth minute.
There are always goals in the play-off. In fact, since the first bronze medal match in 1930, not a single playoff has finished goalless in regulation time and thus been settled on penalties.
Of the 19 World Cup third-place play-offs contested since 1934, only three have featured just one goal scored — 1962 (Chile 1-0 Yugoslavia), 1970 (West Germany 1-0 Uruguay) and 1974 (Poland 1-0 Brazil.)
Four of the last seven games (since USA 1994) have featured four goals or more goals, with 26 scored in total.
Over the entire history of the World Cup, a grand tally of 73 goals have been scored in 19 third-place playoff games.
Third place winners at FIFA World Cup
1 1930 United States
2 1934 Germany
3 1938 Brazil
4 1950 Sweden
5 1954 Austria
6 1958 France
7 1962 Chile
8 1966 Portugal
9 1970 West Germany
10 1974 Poland
11 1978 Brazil
12 1982 Poland
13 1986 France
14 1990 Italy
15 1994 Sweden
16 1998 Croatia
17 2002 Turkey
18 2006 Germany
19 2010 Germany
20 2014 Netherlands
21 2018 Belgium
