{"id":1266728,"date":"2022-12-17T17:52:02","date_gmt":"2022-12-17T17:52:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/12\/17\/croatia-beat-morocco-to-seal-third-place-finish\/"},"modified":"2022-12-17T17:52:02","modified_gmt":"2022-12-17T17:52:02","slug":"croatia-beat-morocco-to-seal-third-place-finish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/12\/17\/croatia-beat-morocco-to-seal-third-place-finish\/","title":{"rendered":"Croatia beat Morocco to seal third-place finish"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\">\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"696\" height=\"389\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image_2022-12-17_171334436-696x389.png\"   alt=\"\" title=\"Morocco vs Croatia\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Credit: Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>Croatia showed their class once more by clinching their third top-three finish at the World Cup with a play-off victory over history-makers Morocco.<\/p>\n<p>Zlatko Dalic\u2019s side were runners-up to France four years ago and confirmed their status as one of the elite footballing nations with another third-place finish to go alongside that secured in their competition debut in 1998.<\/p>\n<p>In a frantic opening, Josko Gvardiol gave Croatia the lead on seven minutes with a superb diving header but Achraf Dari levelled just two minutes later by nodding home from close range.<\/p>\n<p><!-- \/22191989129,1002554\/MGL\/mgl_ado_atunwa_300x250 --><\/p>\n<p>Mislav Orsic curled in a sumptuous second for Croatia via the post three minutes before half-time and struck a thumping, deflected drive into the side-netting after the break.<\/p>\n<p>The second half could not match the energy of a thrilling opening period and Morocco failed to find an equaliser as a fruitful campaign ended in back-to-back defeats.<\/p>\n<p>Though Morocco kept pushing until the end, going close in the dying seconds through Youssef En-Nesyri, Croatia were able to hold on for a 2-1 win and take the prize of a third-place finish.<\/p>\n<p>Though both sides will have been dreaming of reaching a coveted World Cup final, they did themselves proud today and made it a proper contest.<\/p>\n<p>            <!--  [embed]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=videoseries[\/embed]<!--\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>--><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"-CsapGja0GA\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Transport: Minority tasks GPRTU to reduce fares between 15 and 22 percent immediately (16-12-22)\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-CsapGja0GA?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Credit: Getty Images Croatia showed their class once more by clinching their third top-three finish at the World Cup with a play-off victory over history-makers Morocco. Zlatko Dalic\u2019s side were runners-up to France four years ago and confirmed their status as one of the elite footballing nations with another third-place finish to go alongside that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1266729,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1266728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1266728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1266728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1266728\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1266728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1266728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1266728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}