Review Of The 2022 World Cup Quarter-finals, Brazil Vs Croatia: Participating Statistics To The Samba Team

National Team Brasi (Twitter @CBF_Futebol)

JAKARTA - Croatian defender Dejan Lovren is trying to be humble but keep the deadly secret against Brazil later by stating that the Samba Team has a strong second and second tier team.

On the other hand, Brazilian striker Vinicius Jr. said his team would appear confident in previous matches, including continuing to celebrate goals criticized by a number of circles such as Manchester United legend Roy Keane who called them disrespectful to opponents.

"Goals are the most important moment in football, especially the World Cup is even more important. This is a moment of joy not only for us, the players, but also for our entire country," Vinicius said. "We will continue to celebrate like that."

If you look at the statistics of both teams, Brazil deserves confidence because from the quantity of distributing the ball and creating opportunities and the number of goals is indeed above Croatia.

Both teams were 100 passes adrift, while in Brazil's goal, two goals were more than Croatia. The quantity to attack the opponent's goal was also more than Croatia.

Brazil made 70 shots into the opponent's goal, 30 of which were on target, while Croatia made 46 shots, 20 of which were on target.

No wonder Croatian coach Zlatko Dalic himself described Brazil as a terrible team, especially after the five-time champion beat South Korea 4-1 in the previous round.

Brazil itself will step in full force after left-back Alex Sandro can be played again. None of the players were injured, nor were they suspended.

Before Neymar and Danilo played again against South Korea after both recovered from an ankle injury, Tite coaches were forced to improvise in placing players who included positioning them in not their natural positions.

Now Tite can field the first-choice team to occupy its natural positions, including wing-back duo Danilo and Alex Sandro. However, the sharp Neymar during the fight against South Korea, will be put forward again to damage Croatia's play.

He became one of the players who entered the arena with extra motivation, namely equaling the record for Brazil's all-time most goals currently held by Pele with 77 goals. Neymar only had one more goal to match this milestone.

On the other hand, after beating Japan on penalties following a 120-minute 1-1 draw, Croatia faces a tough task against Brazil with a much larger posture than Japan.

Led by four experienced players Luka Modric, Dejan Lovren, Ivan Perisic and Marcelo Brozovic, the 2018 finalists arrived in Qatar as one of the teams with an average team of ages who could find it difficult to keep up with Brazil's explosive.

"Brazil is a favorite, just admit it," Dalic said. "Brazil is the strongest and best team in this World Cup. Brazil is indeed a terrible team," continued Dalic.

But he insisted his squad would have this match with confidence and enjoy the opportunity to play against Brazil.

Dalic believes his team will do more on the pitch even in their previous four meetings against Brazil, Croatia suffered three defeats including 0-1 at the 2006 World Cup and 1-3 at the 2014 World Cup.

Predictions of the first eleven players

Croatia (4-3-3): Dominik Livakovic; Josip Juranovic, Dejan Lovren, Josko Gvardiol, Borna Sosa; Mateo Kovacic, Marcelo Brozovic, Luka Modric; Andreij Kramaric, Bruno Petkovic, Ivan Perisic

Brazil (4-2-3-1): Alisson; Eder Militao, Thiago Silva, Marquinhos, Danilo; Casemiro, Lucas Paqueta; Raphinha, Neymar, Vinicius Jr; Richarlison

Statistics and head to head

Brazil were unbeaten in their previous four meetings with Croatia, three of which they won.

Prior to this the two teams met twice in the World Cup, all of which Brazil won 1-0 in 2006 and 3-1 in 2014, respectively.

Croatia lost four times in five World Cup games, in addition to being 3-0 over Argentina in 2018.

Since beating Germany 2-0 in the 2022 World Cup final, Brazil has always lost their last five World Cup knockout matches against European teams including in the quarter-finals against France in 2006, against the Netherlands in 2010 and against Belgium 2018.

Since the 2008 European Cup, seven of Croatia's eight knockout stages in two major football tournaments (World Cup and European Cup) have continued to extra time except for the 2018 World Cup final. They escaped from all four matches, three of which ended in penalty shootouts.

Brazil has the opportunity to reach the ninth World Cup semifinals, which, if successful, will be two semifinals behind Germany, which has reached this round 12 times.

In four games so far, Croatia has only won once in 90 minutes of normal time, namely when they won 4-1 over Canada in the group stage. They beat Japan on penalties after 1-1 for 120 minutes.

Croatia have won three penalties in the World Cup when they beat Denmark in the last 16 and beat Russia in the 2018 quarter-finals, as well as Japan in the last 16 of the 2022 World Cup.