Of all the teams England could have drawn from pot two, they got the one that knocked them out in 2018. Dallas, 17 June, Croatia again. Dalić’s side does not look like much, and it has not looked like much for most of a decade while it kept reaching finals and semi-finals. England’s first task at this World Cup is solving a team worth more than the sum of its parts, in heat that suits the other lot, with a forward line that has gone quiet at exactly the wrong moment.
What 2018 actually taught England
Moscow is the reference point and it should be. Trippier’s free kick went in inside five minutes, England led at the interval, and then the game slid away in the manner Croatia games tend to. Perisic beat Kyle Walker to a high ball on 68 minutes to level it. Mandzukic finished it in extra time, 109 minutes gone, the latest goal England have ever conceded at a World Cup. Kane had nodded a chance wide before that, and passed up a couple more, which is the bit that gets left out of the unlucky-England story. They were not all that unlucky. They ran out of legs against a side that never seems to.
Croatia keep doing this. England were the better team for an hour in that semi-final and went home anyway, which is more or less the story of their last two World Cups. Tuchel had nothing to do with that England team, but the tape will have told him plenty about what this side does to opponents who fail to put a game to bed.
Croatia’s midfield is still the whole point of Croatia
Luka Modric leads them out again. At 40, his country’s most-capped player ever, into a fifth World Cup, recovered from a facial fracture in April that briefly threatened his preparation. Around him sits Mateo Kovacic, fit again after his own injury scare, and a younger tier in Luka Sučić, Petar Sučić and Martin Baturina who are auditioning to inherit a midfield that has defined Croatian football for fifteen years.
Qualifying barely tested them. They conceded four goals across the entire campaign and won seven of eight to finish top, the only slip a goalless afternoon away in Czechia. Kramaric scored six of their 26. Nobody is getting steamrolled by this Croatia. They keep the ball off you and give you nothing in the channels, then wait for the half-chance their forwards have spent a decade tucking away. Perisic and Kramaric are both still here to do it. Budimir and Musa give Dalić something more direct off the bench. We’ve broken down every squad and every group at this World Cup if you want the wider picture before the tournament kicks off.
Tuchel’s England, airtight at the back and quiet up front
England are built the other way round. They barely concede. Tuchel has the defensive structure exactly where he wants it, clean sheet after clean sheet, and it would count for a lot more if the attack were holding up its end. It is not. England have not put more than one goal past anyone since the turn of the year. The New Zealand win made the point again, a 1–0 in Tampa that Kane headed on the stroke of half time, after which a rotated team toiled through the heat and made almost nothing.
That is the honest version of the “fluid, aggressive” England plan. The intent is front-foot. The output has been cagey. The talent is not the issue, with Bukayo Saka, Jude Bellingham, Eberechi Eze and a reborn Marcus Rashford all in the group, plus Kane leading the line. Tuchel rested Declan Rice, Saka, Eze and Madueke for New Zealand precisely so they would be fresh for this. The final warm-up against Costa Rica in Orlando is his last look before it counts, and finishing is the thing he most needs to fix.
Where the opener gets decided
The opener gets decided in the middle, and it gets decided by speed. Croatia want it slow. Hand Modric and Kovacic the ball with time to use it and they will drag the tempo to walking pace, the rhythm they have won more games in than almost anyone alive. Tuchel has already called Croatia the strongest team England could have drawn from pot two, and the four goals they conceded across qualifying are why he is right. The Dallas heat in mid-June, under a roof that can trap it, does a slow team no harm and a pressing team no favours. Kick-off in Dallas is 9pm BST on ITV1, and every game of this World Cup is free to watch in the UK, this one included.
England’s route is to make it a sprint. Get at Croatia early, use the legs of Rice and Bellingham to deny Modric time, and turn the screw before the game settles into the rhythm the Croatians prefer. Score first and the whole calculation changes, because Croatia chasing a deficit is a very different proposition to Croatia managing a draw. The duel that decides it is the one in the middle, England’s energy against Croatia’s craft.
What happens in Dallas
England should win this. Better squad, fresher legs, a defence Croatia will struggle to break down with the forwards they have. The likeliest version is a tight one, England 1–0 or thereabouts, settled by a set piece or a moment of Saka or Bellingham quality rather than a flowing move, because flowing moves have been in short supply.
The thing that should keep England fans uneasy is the shape of it. A one-goal lead against this Croatia is not a lead you can sit on. They scored their two against England in 2018 in the 68th minute and beyond, and the whole of their tournament history is a study in patience rewarded late. So the prediction comes with a question attached, the one England have never quite answered against Modric’s generation. Can they finish the job before the game becomes the kind of game Croatia know how to steal.
