Overview
Regularly appearing on the podium but never touching the championship, Croatia will cross the Atlantic with two silver medals and one bronze medal at international tournaments in the past 8 years.
The person behind these impressive achievements, Zlatko Dalic, continues to lead the team after building an almost perfect 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign with 7 wins and one draw after 8 matches.
Croatia will soon reunite with their familiar opponent, England, in the US, along with Panama and Ghana in Group L, which is considered very attractive. Their opening match will take place in Texas on June 17, where they will face the "Three Lions".
Croatia's preparation for the World Cup in March brought mixed signals. They came back to defeat Colombia with a score of 2-1 at Orlando, before suffering a 1-3 defeat to Brazil also at this stadium.
The defeat to Carlo Ancelotti's team ended Croatia's 9-match unbeaten streak and four consecutive wins in all competitions. However, since defeats to Turkey and Wales in October 2023, Dalic's team has not yet suffered 2 consecutive defeats.
Meanwhile, the Belgian team stopped right from the group stage of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar and was eliminated in the round of 16 of EURO 2024. The person assigned the responsibility of bringing glory back to Belgian football has also not had a truly convincing start.
Former Lyon and Napoli coach, Rudi Garcia, won seven victories in his first 12 matches leading the team. However, Belgium still finished the World Cup qualifiers at the top of the group with an unbeaten record, and successfully stayed in the Nations League after a 4-3 overall victory over Ukraine in the play-offs.
Garcia's team also showed formidable attacking power when defeating the US 5-2 in a friendly match in March, before being held to a 1-1 draw by Mexico in a not-so-outstanding performance. However, this result still helped them extend their unbeaten streak to 11 matches in all competitions.
The Belgian team scored 38 goals in that period, although partly from encounters with weaker opponents such as Liechtenstein. Notably, Belgium is also unbeaten in the last four encounters with Croatia. The last time Croatia defeated Belgium was in a friendly match in 2010, when Niko Kranjcar scored the decisive goal.
Personnel situation
Luka Modric's age means that there is always uncertainty about his ability to participate in the 2026 World Cup. However, the 40-year-old player will wear the captain's armband of Croatia this summer, and he is only 4 matches away from the milestone of 200 caps for the national team.
Modric is one of 4 Croatian players who have played more than 100 matches, along with Mateo Kovacic, Ivan Perisic and Andrej Kramaric. There is information that Kramaric has had hip muscle problems for months, but Dalic has denied those concerns.
The Belgian national team also has 4 players who have worn the national team jersey more than 100 times in the World Cup squad, namely Romelu Lukaku, Kevin De Bruyne, Axel Witsel and Thibaut Courtois. Among them, Lukaku was called up by Garcia despite continuous injury problems in the 2025-2026 season.
Expected lineup:
Livakovic, Pongracic, Vuskovic, Gvardiol, Stanisic, Modric, M. Pasalic, Perisic, Kramaric, Baturina, Budimir.
Courtois, Castagne, De Winter, Theate, De Cuyper, Tielemans, Witsel, Saelemaekers, De Bruyne, Doku, Fernandez-Pardo.
The match between Croatia and Belgium takes place at 11:00 PM on June 2nd (Vietnam time).
