{"id":652888,"date":"2025-03-20T04:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-20T08:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=652888"},"modified":"2025-03-20T04:30:16","modified_gmt":"2025-03-20T08:30:16","slug":"croatia-predicted-lineup-vs-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/03\/20\/croatia-predicted-lineup-vs-france\/","title":{"rendered":"Croatia Predicted Lineup vs France for March 20"},"content":{"rendered":"

Due to the expansion of the UEFA Nations League, to now include two-legged quarterfinal ties before the Final Four tournament, runners-up of last season\u2019s UNL edition, Croatia, are still in the running for it this time. They face France in those quarterfinal games, playing the first leg at home. Last Word on Football brings you our Croatia predicted lineup for the match.<\/p>\n

Croatia Predicted Lineup vs France<\/h2>\n

How Croatia Have Lined Up Recently<\/h3>\n

In the most recent international window in November<\/a>, coach Zlatko Dali\u0107 was forced to go with a very different lineup, than he is likely to rely upon in Thursday\u2019s first leg. That is true both tactically and in terms of personnel. On Matchday 6 of the Nations League group stage against Portugal, they started as follows:<\/p>\n

Dominik Livakovi\u0107 was in goal, as Josip \u0160utalo, Duje \u0106aleta-Car, and Jo\u0161ko Gvardiol were the trio in defence. Meanwhile, Ivan Peri\u0161i\u0107 and Borna Sosa played in the wingback roles on either side.<\/p>\n

Luka Modri\u0107 and Mateo Kova\u010di\u0107 were the central midfield duo, as Andrej Kramari\u0107, Martin Baturina, and Igor Matanovi\u0107 were the front three.<\/p>\n

Read More: The Biggest Croatia Football Success Stories and can they win Euro 2024?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

As noted above, it will be a quite different formation and lineup this time around. The return of Josip Stani\u0161i\u0107, in particular, from a long-term injury will give Dali\u0107 the opportunity to play with a back four instead, but more on that later.<\/p>\n

Croatia Recent Form and Tactics<\/h3>\n

Recent form of course isn\u2019t much of an indicator for an international side, that last met four months ago. But for what it\u2019s worth, Croatia\u2019s recent results were not particularly good. The Vatreni only won two of their last six matches. Still, it was enough to finish second in their group by the skin of their teeth, thus qualifying for this quarterfinal stage.<\/p>\n

Read More: Five Things We Learnt From the Croatia Euro Exit<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Tactically, Dali\u0107 is likely to return to his preferred 4-3-3 formation. It is likely the best fit for the players now available to him as well.<\/p>\n

Croatia Injuries to Consider<\/h3>\n

As of this writing, there are no known injuries to the players in the current squad.<\/p>\n

Croatia Predicted Lineup vs France<\/h3>\n

Livakovi\u0107, Stani\u0161i\u0107, \u0160utalo, Pongra\u010di\u0107, Gvardiol, Kova\u010di\u0107, Modri\u0107, Pa\u0161ali\u0107, Kramari\u0107, Budimir, Peri\u0161i\u0107.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Due to the expansion of the UEFA Nations League, to now include two-legged quarterfinal ties before the Final Four tournament, runners-up of last season\u2019s UNL edition, Croatia, are still in the running for it this time. They face France in those quarterfinal games, playing the first leg at home. Last Word on Football brings you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4762,"featured_media":640995,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[161,1831],"tags":[3282,1777],"class_list":["post-652888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-football","category-starting-line-up","tag-predicted-lineup","tag-uefa-nations-league"],"modified_by":"Henry Chung, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4762"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652888"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":652914,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652888\/revisions\/652914"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}