Brazil vs Croatia Preview

This is arguably the most exciting warm up friendly for this summer’s World Cup.

Most teams look to play lesser oppositions, but brazil have chosen to take on this very talented Croatian side, while there is nothing at stake apart from pride, the players would be looking to stake their claim for a starting place in Russia.

Brazil are going to play Croatia’s bitter rivals Serbia in their last group game at the World Cup in a few weeks so this is a good warm-up match.

The Brazilian team should enjoy some home support as they have the duo of Philippe Coutinho and Roberto Firmino in their team, however, Neymar remains a major doubt.

Croatia play Argentina in their group stage, with Nigeria and Iceland completing the group and they would be optimistic that they can reach the knockout stage of the competition.

Croatia are a good team, however, they made their qualification unnecessarily difficult for themselves and it will be interesting to see if which Coratia turns up when they play the Brazilians in this game.

Croatia have won just six of their last fourteen games.

Even without Neymar, Brazil still have the quality to get the win here and it will be interesting to see how the Croatians can cope with the firepower of the South Americans.

These teams met in the 2006 and 2014 World Cup and Brazil won both of those matches.

Results of each team’s last 5 matches across all leagues and competitions

Brazil

LAST FIVE GAMES						DATE	COMPETITION
W	Germany		0-1		Brazil	27 Mar, 2018	International Friendly
W	Russia		0-3		Brazil	23 Mar, 2018	International Friendly
D	England		0-0		Brazil	14 Nov, 2017	International Friendly
W	Japan		1-3		Brazil	10 Nov, 2017	International Friendly
W	Brazil		3-0		Chile	11 Oct, 2017	FIFA World Cup Qualifying – CONMEBOL

Croatia

LAST FIVE GAMES						DATE	COMPETITION
W	Mexico		0-1		Croatia	28 Mar, 2018	International Friendly
L	Peru		2-0		Croatia	24 Mar, 2018	International Friendly
D	Greece		0-0		Croatia	12 Nov, 2017	FIFA World Cup Qualifying –
W	Croatia		4-1		Greece	9 Nov, 2017	FIFA World Cup Qualifying –
W	Ukraine		0-2		Croatia	9 Oct, 2017	FIFA World Cup Qualifying –

H2H

DATE	COMPETITION
Brazil		1-0		Croatia	13 Jun, 2006	FIFA World Cup
Croatia		1-1		Brazil	17 Aug, 2005	International Friendly