The two L’s from Group L’s opening games meet to get their World Cup plans back on track while potentially eliminating their opponents. The way the draw works teams probably only need to win one game to make the knockout phase, so Croatia will look to bounce back from their loss to England by beating a side who have lost all their World Cup games so far. Given the World Cup heights Croatia have scaled in recent tournaments, Panama should be an easy channel for success. That’s probably being harsh on Panama and this Panama vs Croatia Group L match, but they can’t all be diamonds.
Panama vs Croatia Preview
STATS SUMMARY
RATINGS
The Gurgler’s in-house Ratings system chooses the winner. Using H2H history, World Cup performance history, World Cup qualifying, the last four years of international games, performance against the confederation, and current effort at this World Cup.
| Panama | 33.0% | Croatia | 67.0% |
No surprise here as a team that has made a final is rating better than a team who has yet to win a game at the World Cup.
BARELY INTERESTING STATS
Panama have lost all four games they have played at the World Cup so far, which includes two losses to European sides.
Croatia are W2 L2 v CONCACAF teams at the World Cup, the two losses were both against Mecchio. In good news for goals fans, three of those four games have seen four goals or more.
Overall Croatia’s record v CONCACAF teams is W7 L2.
Croatia have only won two of their last nine matches at the World Cup before penalty shootouts – W2 D3 L4.
Panama hit the most Long Balls in the opening round of matches with 71. Croatia hit 42 for the record. Panama also made the most amount of tackles.
MATCH PREDICTION
Panama 0 Croatia 2
