Croatia, after their opening defeat to England, were playing with their “backs against the wall” against Panama. Although difficult, Zlatko Dalic’s team got the victory they so badly wanted with a 1-0, in the second matchday of the 12th group of the 2026 World Cup and entered the qualifying game for good. 

On the contrary, the second defeat for Thomas Christiansen’s team was condemning, as they were eliminated from the rest of the tournament.

Panama not only stood up to the challenge in the first 45 minutes against the favorites, Croatia, but based on the look of the match, they were the team that could have gone into the locker room with a lead.

He hit the post in the 27th minute with Rodriguez in a phase that if a goal had been scored would have been reviewed by VAR, while in two or three other cases Christiansen’s players came out with very good conditions in attack, but they didn’t have good finishes.

At the start of the second half, Dalic brought Kramaric and Budimir into the match and a few minutes later he was justified. From Stanisic’s low cross in the 54th minute, Budimir opened the scoring for Croatia in an empty net. “Hrvatska” could have “cleaned up” the match after three minutes, if Pasalic had hit the target in the unique tete-a-tete with Mosquera. 

Referee: Pierre Acho (Gabon)

Yellow cards: Barcenas – P. Sucic

The compositions of the two teams:

PANAMA (Thomas Christiansen): Mosquera, Blackman, Ramos (77′ Waterman), Cordoba, Murillo, Andrade, Harvey, Martinez, Barcenas (90′ T. Rodriguez), J. Rodriguez, Fajardo (83′ Londono)

CROATIA (Zlatko Dalic): Livakovic, Stanisic, Sutalo, Pongracic, Guardiola (46′ Kramaric), Modric (81′ Mario Pasalic), Kovacic (72′ P. Sucic), Marko Pasalic (72′ L. Sucic), Baturina, Perisic, Musa (46′ Budimir)