Croatia vs. Japan: What the statistics show

This will be Japan and Croatia’s third World Cup meeting. In the previous two, a 0-1 loss in 1998 and a scoreless draw in 2006, both during the group stage, left Japan winless and without a goal. Croatia has only faced Asian countries in those two World Cup matches.

Japan defeated Spain and Germany 2-1 in their group stage 2022 World Cup matches against European opponents. Prior to this year, they had only triumphed in two of their opening ten World Cup encounters with European opponents (D3 L5).

Japan has now advanced to the round of 16 in four World Cups, including each of the last two. They were eliminated by Turkey in 2002, Paraguay (on penalties) in 2010, and Belgium in 2018, but they never recovered from this round. The DPR Korea of 1966 and the Korea Republic of 2002 were the only Asian countries to advance to the World Cup quarterfinals.

While Croatia advanced to the World Cup round of 16, this will be their third appearance there.

Croatia has won four of their eight World Cup knockout stage matches (W4 D2) and advanced from the two such matches that ended in draws after penalties, both in 2018.

Over the course of their three World Cup games in the group stage, Japan had just 32.3% of the ball on average. Their one loss came to Costa Rica in a game in which they had 56.8% of the possession, compared to their two victories over Spain and Germany, which came with 17.7% and 26.1 percent of the possession, respectively.

Prior to this World Cup, Croatia had only drawn a blank in two of their 13 games at the tournament in the 2006, 2014, and 2018 editions combined. They also failed to score in two of their three group stage games.

Japan has scored four goals at the 2022 World Cup, the most by an Asian team in a single edition with three of those goals coming from replacements (excl. own goals). Only three players have ever scored three or more goals as a substitute at a single World Cup: André Schürrle in 2014 (3), Roger Milla in 1990 (4), and Laszlo Kiss in 1982. Ritsu Doan has scored two of those goals.

Despite the fact that he did not start any of Japan’s three games, Takuma Asano attempted eight more shots than any other player in the 2022 World Cup group stage. Asano averaged one shot every 13 minutes.

Ivan Perisic has equaled Davor Suker’s record of nine goals scored for Croatia at major competitions (the World Cup and the Euros), and he has also provided more assists than any other player for the country. In fact, Mateo Kovacic (5) has created more opportunities for Croatia than anyone else, while Perisic (5) has had the most shots for Croatia at the 2022 World Cup.

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