After impressing everyone in the 2016 EURO Cup, Iceland made their World Cup debut with a not so great run so far. However, they have been unlucky so far, and probably deserved more (just like many other teams). With only one point in their bag, they are now sitting at the 3rd spot. They will now clash against the already qualified side of Croatia on Tuesday. Croatia might not have been very good in their first match against Nigeria, but they were dominant against Argentina and had already qualified to the next phase.
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Iceland showed us their competitive face once again in this competition, but they have only managed to grab a single point so far. After holding out for a 1-1 draw in the first match against Argentina, Iceland had some bad luck against Nigeria. They made a solid start in the game, as they created six scoring chances against none by their opponents in the first half. However, the second half was the exact opposite, as Nigeria clearly had the upper hand and scored two goals in the 49th and 75th minute. Iceland had the chance to get back into the match at the 83rd minute, but Sigurdsson missed from the penalty spot. Had that goal gone in, things could have been much different for Iceland. The reality now is that they are in quite a difficult spot. They will need nothing less than a win here, and quite possibly by a lot of goals to improve their goal difference.
On the other hand, Croatia recorded a somewhat lucky win against Nigeria in the first match that they probably didn’t deserve. Maybe they did deserve it, but it was actually handed to them by Nigeria, who scored an own goal and conceded a penalty kick. However, Nigeria was slightly better than Croatia in that match and didn’t deserve to lose by that much. Even so, Croatia was significantly improved in the second match against Argentina, which was a match that they really had to win. It was a very quiet and kind of dull first half, where neither team managed to score. Croatia eventually took the lead at the 53rd minute with Rebic. They went on to score two more goals in the last 10 minutes of the match, to ultimately humiliate Argentina by 3-0. Croatia has now won both games without even conceding, and will try to keep it that way.
Get more details: Iceland vs Croatia World Cup Match-Up