Canada is going home after a 1-4 loss to Croatia and the World Cup will miss their songs. For two games, Doha has heard its red-clad fans bounce around the subway and on the stadium concourses.
“Alphonso Davies, Alphonso Davies”, is how he begins his ode to the Bayern Munich player and refers to his curly hair. After “I love you so much Alphonso Davies”, the singer asks Davies to make “his babies of him”. Another talks about Canada landing in Doha “drinking Coca-Cola” and “going all the way”. Having done their routine on the subway to Khalifa Stadium on Sunday, three Canadians asked “where are the Croats?” Seeing a father and son, both with Modric on their backs, they said: “Please, don’t mark us. For 36 years we have had nothing.”
Davies gave them something so early in the game that neither Canada nor Croatia could believe what had happened. Goalkeeper Milan Borjan played for Cyle Larin, who found Tajin Buchanan on the right. The right-sided attacker arched a cross and Davies attacked the ball, climbing past Croatian right-back Josip Juranvoc to score with a header.
“Let’s go to Canada”, reverberated in the huge Khalifa Stadium, one of the oldest in the city. Scoring the country’s first World Cup goal days after missing a penalty and that too against the team that finished second in the last iteration gave Canada’s frontline trio of Davis, Larin and Buchanan a reason to push for more and leave Croatia shaken. Canada was playing passes in their front third in a way that belied their lack of experience at this level.
Little by little, however, Croatia gained a foothold in the game. In their exuberance to attack, Canada began to create space in the midfield that gave Croatia a chance to take control. Andrej Kramaric was marginally offside and then Marko Livaja’s shot was saved by Borjan. A minute later, at minute 36, Kramaric equalized.
Ivan Perisic played an inside pass that threw the defense off track and sent Kramaric running into space. The 1899 Hoffenheim player shot Borjan into the far post net. When Marko Livaja made it 2- in the 44th minute, those in the black jersey fell heads. Croatia ran their luck after Kamal Miller slid trying to take the ball from Josip Juranovioc, who then found Livaja. With the goal full to aim for, Livaja finished off Borjan’s right. Soon Kramaric exploded and before they entered half time, Croatia had shown who’s boss.
Canada coach John Herdman had said on television that he had told his boys they “belong here” after the performance against Belgium, one that Mexico coach Gerard ‘Tata’ Martino had called pure class. , and that they would “Beat Croatia”. This led to a Croatian tabloid printing an image of a naked shepherd with a maple leaf covering his private parts. And Perisic and coach Zlatko Dalic saying they didn’t agree with Herdman’s choice of words. Perisic had even said that he couldn’t wait for the match to start. Luka Modric and Riche Larya faced each other once and required the intervention of the Uruguayan referee Andrés Matonte.
Jonathan Osorio’s shot went agonizingly wide for Canada early in the second half and Jonathan David tried from distance, but Croatia were ahead of the game. Kramaric was denied by Borjan before he made it 3-1 on 70 minutes before a horrendous mistake by Miller landed Mislav Orsic and Lovro Majer on Borjan. Orsic let Majer do the honors in the fourth minute of second-half stoppage time.
After two games, Canada has zero points, but the other three teams go into the final series of games knowing they have a chance to stay beyond the group league.
