Croatia vs Russia

Croatia host Russia for this FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar qualification clash at Stadion Poljud in Split tonight. It is the final game for both teams in this group and the stakes could not be higher. Russia have grabbed two points more than Croatia so far. This must be a slight surprise for many football experts - including myself. However, as a result, the situation ahead of this battle is very clear - Croatia need to win tonight to qualify directly for the World Cup in Qatar. Russia, on the other hand, would win the group with even a draw.

Both teams have indeed played well in this group, especially Russia have exceeded expectations but have also had some luck on their side in some of the matches. Not a lot has changed with either team since the EURO 2020 last summer. The difference if raw class was pretty big in favor of the Croats then despite one pretty lame performance - a 1-1 draw versus Czech Republic where Croats showed hardly anything offensively. But then again, Czechs did qualify from the group and even beat Netherlands in the play offs so perhaps we all underestimated them and judged Croatia too quickly for not beating them.. Russia on the other hand were a major disappointment in EURO 2020, especially the Russian themselves must have been hopeful after the good run they made in the World Cup in 2018. They did not really stand chance in their first match versus Belgium - even at home and despite the fact the Belgium were missing some important players. In their second match they faced perhaps the worst team in the tournament, my home country Finland, and did won 1-0 but the mach was pretty balanced despite Russia being some 58% favorites according to the betting market. In their last match of the tournament they were totally crushed by the Danes who seemed to have a huge boost of motivation playing at home in front of amazing fans and from knowing Christian Eriksen survived the horrible heart-attack he suffered versus Finland. Still, Russia's pretty limited level of football was in my opinion revealed in that match - Denmark cruised to 4-1 victory. Croatia, on the other hand, qualified from the group and forced the best team in the tournament in my opinion, Spain to a 30 minutes extra match after huge drama coming back from 1-3 to 3-3 in the last ten minutes of the match. Spain eventually won though but Croatia showed great fighting spirit and played well as a whole too!

In this group both teams are clearly better than the rest of the teams and have beaten almost all weaker opponents with relative ease. When the teams faced each other in Russia it was a 0-0 draw but Croatia had some 60% ball possession and created clearly more scoring chances as well as attacks and dangerous attacks and were the better team. As a whole I see them clearly better by raw class and in front of amazing fans they must have very good chance of winning. Croatia -0.5 goals handicap is my pick fro my growing fan-base

本译文使用有道机器翻译，仅供参考：

克罗地亚将于今晚在斯普利特的波尔朱德球场迎战俄罗斯，争夺2022年卡塔尔世界杯的资格赛。这是本小组两支球队的最后一场比赛，赌注再高不过了。到目前为止，俄罗斯比克罗地亚多得了两分。对于许多足球专家，包括我自己，这一定有点让人吃惊。然而，结果是，这场战斗的形势非常明确——克罗地亚需要在今晚赢得比赛，以直接晋级卡塔尔世界杯。另一方面，俄罗斯队即使平局也会赢得小组。

两支球队在这个小组中都表现得很好，尤其是俄罗斯队超出了人们的预期，但在一些比赛中他们也有一些运气。自去年夏天的2020年欧洲杯以来，这两支球队都没有太大的变化。尽管克罗地亚1-1战平捷克，克罗地亚几乎没有表现出任何进攻能力，但如果没有表现出任何进攻能力的话，这对克罗地亚来说是非常重要的。但话说回来，捷克确实从小组出线，甚至在附加赛中击败了荷兰队，所以也许我们都低估了他们，认为克罗地亚没有打败他们太快了。另一方面，俄罗斯在2020年欧洲杯上令人失望，尤其是俄罗斯人自己在2018年世界杯上取得了不错的成绩之后，肯定还抱有希望。他们在第一场对比利时的比赛中没有机会，即使是在主场，尽管比利时失去了一些重要的球员。在第二场比赛中，他们面对的是可能是本届锦标赛最差的球队，我的祖国芬兰，并以1-0获胜，但比分相当平衡，尽管俄罗斯在博彩市场上有58%的人被看好。在欧洲杯的最后一场比赛中，他们被丹麦人彻底打败了。丹麦人似乎在主场面对着令人惊叹的球迷，在得知克里斯蒂安·埃里克森(Christian Eriksen)在对阵芬兰队时心脏病发作，但幸存了下来，他们的斗志似乎得到了极大的提升。尽管如此，在我看来，俄罗斯的足球水平在那场比赛中还是很有限的——丹麦以4-1的比分轻松获胜。另一方面，克罗地亚从小组出线，并迫使我认为本届杯赛中最好的球队，西班牙在比赛最后10分钟从1比3逆转到3比3的戏剧性场面后，延长了30分钟的比赛。西班牙最终赢了，但是克罗地亚表现出了伟大的斗志，整体表现也很好!

在这个小组中，两支球队都明显优于其他球队，并相对轻松地击败了几乎所有较弱的对手。当两队在俄罗斯对战时，比分是0-0平局，但克罗地亚拥有60%的控球率，创造了明显更多的进球机会、进攻和危险的进攻，是更好的球队。作为一个整体，我认为他们在原始水平上明显更好，在令人惊叹的球迷面前，他们一定有很好的获胜机会。克罗地亚-0.5个进球的障碍是我对不断增长的球迷基础的选择