The players of Croatia and Morocco would have been dreaming of playing the World Cup final at the Lusail Iconic Stadium on Sunday before going to bed on Monday and Tuesday night respectively. But as it happened, the valiant-but-dejected stars of their nation will have to muster some willpower as they will be playing on Saturday at Khalifa International Stadium in the third-place play-off.
FootTheBall dives into the significance and history of this – more or less – obligatory fixture that decides the battle for the bronze medal.
What is the importance of the third-place play-off?
After an emotionally and physically laborious month of all-or-nothing football, four out of the chosen 32 have a decidedly realistic chance to lay their hands on the gilded treasure. Events transpire, and in the blink of an eye, the hearts of half of the semi-finalists are shattered.
Broken and fatigued, a day before the final, these two fallen teams are obligated to fight it out in the bittersweet spectacle that is the third-place playoff, which is frankly bitter in more parts than it is sweet.
Seen as an unnecessary exertion of exhausted teams as well as a reminder of their grand failure at the penultimate step, many people are of the opinion that this fixture takes away more than it adds to the world event. “I think that this match should never be played,” voiced Louis van Gaal, the recent Netherlands manager, before his team’s bronze-medal match against Brazil in 2014.
“I have been saying this for the past 10 years. We will just have to play the game, but it is unfair. We will have one day less to recover and that’s not fair play. The worst thing is, I believe, there is a chance that you lose twice in a row in a tournament in which you’ve played so marvellously well. You go home as a loser because possibly you’ve lost the last two matches,” he said at the time.
It’s the end of our journey in the World Cup. Hope we can get the third place 🥉🇲🇦 pic.twitter.com/escJtq5jQF
— 532off (@532off) December 14, 2022
But, if looking from the other side of the coin, for underdog teams who are not expected to win World Cup but go on fairly tale runs, the matter of finishing third or getting the chance to take the field one last time in a special tournament holds a lot of significance and emotion, as it did for Turkey and South Korea in 2002, Croatia in 1998, Sweden in 1994, or Uruguay in 2010. As it will for Croatia but perhaps even more for Morocco…
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