Celtic target Alistair Johnston exited the World Cup today as his battling Canada side lost out 4-1 to Josip Juranovic’s Croatia, their second straight defeat of the tournament.
John Herdman’s side realistically needed a win for a chance to qualify for the knockout stage after Morocco blew Group F wide open with their win over Belgium earlier today, and Canada started appropriately when Alphonso Davies thumped in a header for 1-0 inside two minutes of the match.
Johnston would have seemed to have his work cut out up against Ivan Perisic on Croatia’s left flank, but the Montreal defender made a good start up against the Spurs livewire, matching him on a couple of occasions to snuff Croatia out after Alphonso Davies’ early opener for Canada.
He also held his line well as Croatia’s would-be equaliser was correctly ruled out for offside after 26 minutes but he was powerless to stop Perisic’s clever reverse ball to Andrej Kramaric, with the Hoffenheim forward finishing clinically across Milan Borjan in the Canada goal ten minutes before half-time.
Once Croatia had their tails up, Canada were under consistent pressure, preventing Johnston from demonstrating his attacking ability in any meaningful way, and they increased their lead after seventy minutes courtesy of a second expertly-finished Kramaric goal.
The third Croatia goal all but ended the match as a contest, as Borjan kept Canada in the game in the second half with a couple of great saves.
In what was a cruel end to the game, a howler from Kamal Miller gave Mislav Orsic the chance to put one on a plate for Lovro Majer who capped the day off for Croatia in stoppage time.
Despite Alphonso Davies’ obvious talent, there weren’t too many others who stuck out offensively for Canda, and they struggled to trouble Croatia after their fast start.
Johnston made 76 touches across the 90+ minutes, and completed 40 of an attempted 48 passes (83% success rate) – with ten of those being played into the final third. Defensively, he was dispossessed once, made two clearances, won 4/7 of his ground duels and won both the single aerial duel and tackle he contested, also winning three fouls and conceding none [Opta/Fotmob].
Though Canada got off to the perfect start, they struggled to compete with a Croatia side brimming with technical ability and experience, and in truth were well out-gunned over the course of the contest.
In a tough group, they can be quietly content with their performances if not their results, particularly against two of the better sides on paper in the competition.
Canada face Morocco in their final group match on Thursday (3pm UK time) as they look to put at least a point on the board as reward for their decent showings so far, and it sounds like we’ll be seeing plenty of Alistair Johnston when Celtic return after the World Cup.
In other news: UEFA president rules out adopting World Cup directive that could have benefitted Celtic
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