Croatia vs. Morocco: How to watch and stream the World Cup third-place game
Typically, the third-place game at the FIFA World Cup often doesn’t matter much, but this one has some rich storylines
Morocco has been one of the great Cinderella stories in soccer history, becoming the first African and first Arab team to make a World Cup semifinal. The Atlas Lions and their legions of fans now get to throw one more party on the world’s biggest stage.
Croatia features one of the great midfield conductors in modern world soccer history, Luka Modrić. The 37-year-old linchpin of his country and Real Madrid will play in his last World Cup game on Saturday.
Modrić has won five UEFA Champions League titles, four FIFA Club World Cups, and the 2018 Ballon D’Or and FIFA World Player of the Year. Though he will not win the biggest prize of all as a player, it’s extraordinary that he has led his country to a World Cup final and the semifinal in back-to-back tournaments.
Here’s how to watch Saturday’s game, as the world celebrates these two teams and prepares for Sunday’s Argentina-France final. Hopefully, it’s not a repeat of when Croatia and Morocco met in the group stage on Nov. 23 and played a scoreless tie.
Croatia vs. Morocco
Time: 10 a.m.
Venue: Khalifa International Stadium, Al Rayyan
English TV/streaming: Fox29 and FoxSports.com (Derek Rae on play-by-play with analyst Aly Wagner and referee expert Joe Machnik)
Pregame coverage starts at 9 a.m. Postgame coverage runs until 12:30 p.m., or later if the game runs long. Fox’s World Cup Tonight studio show will air at 9 p.m. on FS1 and midnight on Fox.
Spanish TV/streaming: Telemundo 62, TelemundoDeportes.com and Peacock (Copán Alvarez and Sammy Sadovnik will do a half of play-by-play and a half of analysis each, alongside analyst Eduardo Biscayart).
Pregame coverage starts at 8 a.m., and postgame coverage goes until 2 p.m. The late highlights show is at 11:30 p.m.
» READ MORE: Telemundo has reported on Qatar’s controversies, but Fox hasn’t
FoxSports.com and TelemundoDeportes.com require authentication through participating pay-TV providers. Peacock is NBC and Telemundo’s subscription streaming service.
Fox also has replays of every game for free on its streaming platform, Tubi.
Betting odds: Croatia -134, Morocco +100.
Players to watch
Croatia: Ivan Perišić. The 33-year-old winger from England’s Tottenham Hotspur is likely playing in his last World Cup game too.
Morocco: Achraf Hakimi. Before going back to Paris, where he’s club teammates with Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé, he gets another day of glory with his country. There will surely be more to come in the future because he’s just 24 years old.