Croatia vs. Morocco Betting Tips: Best bets for the third place play-off
Croatia face Morocco in the third place play-off on Saturday in what is the penultimate day of the World Cup in Qatar. We’ve previewed the action and have provided you with our two best bets for the game.
Zlatko Dalic’s Croatia side were beaten 3-0 in the semi-finals by Argentina and will be looking to bounce back here and grab that Bronze medal. For a country of just 4 million people achieving back-to-back second and third place finishes at a World Cup would be one hell of an achievement for Croatia and the bookmakers fancy them to do so, with odds of 11/8 on show for them to get the job done in 90 minutes.
Morocco put in a very respectable performance against France in their 2-0 semi-final defeat to France but lacked a cutting edge in the final third. The Atlas Lions will be incredibly proud to be the first African side to ever reach the last-four of the World Cup and a third place finish really would be the icing on the cake.
Croatia vs Morocco Tips
The first of two selections we have picked out for this game is for Bruno Petkovic to have Over 1.5 Shots in the match. Zaltko Dalic is likely to rotate a few of his players for this game and one who we expect to come into the starting XI is striker Bruno Petkovic.
Petkovic has only started once so far at this tournament, which came against Japan in the round of 16. At club level, the 28-year-old has scored eight goals in 15 starts this term, and has also scored in the Champions League for Dinamo Zagreb.
In the quarter-finals, Petkovic came off the bench to score a crucial goal against Brazil and we think he looks a little overpriced to have Over 1.5 shots against Morocco. Betfair and Paddy Power have this selection priced at 4/11, so we’re recommending the generous looking even money available with bet365.
We’ve also picked out a player to be carded in this game, and the referee in charge will be Abdulrahman Al Jassim who has only taken control of one match so far at this tournament. That game was in the group stages when Wales faced the USA, with Al Jassim showing a healthy six yellows on that evening.
The player we are siding with here is Kristijan Jakic of Croatia who should come into the side to replace Marcelo Brozovic, who left the field after just 50 minutes in the semi-final defeat to Argentina with an issue.
Last season Jakic was shown six yellow cards in just 21 league starts for Eintracht Frankfurt and with him eager to impress and earn Croatia that third place finish, we think he’ll be bang up for this one. Other firms, such as BetVictor have Jakic priced at 17/10 to be carded, so head over to Paddy Power and take the 4/1.
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