Croatia and Morocco's opening Group F match wasn't much of a footballing spectacle. While the Croatians had a visible territorial advantage and were more frequent in the final third of the pitch, both teams ended up creating just one big chance, which they both failed to convert.
In terms of the expected goals metric, which measures the quality of the scoring chances created, the final score stood at 0.81 - 0.47 in Croatia's favour.
Moroccan defensive midfielder Sofyan Amrabat (26) was breaking up the Croatian attacks with great confidence, and the rest of the tournament would prove that he, along with Achraf Hakimi (24), were the main architects of the African team's first-ever semi-final appearance at the World Cup.
In an advanced data metric which evaluates how effectively a player prevents opponents' rushes, dribbles and passes, Amrabat is the second-best defensive midfielder in the tournament. He is followed by Casemiro, Ruben Neves, Thomas Partey and Croatia's Marcelo Brozovic (30).
The only man who has had a bigger defensive influence on his team's play in midfield is Adrien Rabiot (27) of France. Ironically, he did not play in the semi-final match due to a virus.
Amrabat has been dominant in physical duels at the tournament and is among a small group of players whose success rate in those is around the 70% mark. Along with him are Partey, Joshua Kimmich, Declan Rice and Lucas Paqueta.
It is important to stress that the Moroccan star maintains such a high success rate even though he undergoes a significantly higher volume of duels compared to the above quartet - in terms of numbers, only Brozovic has been more active during matches.
With the ball at his feet, Amrabat hasn't shown up too often in Qatar - unsurprisingly, given Morocco's ultra-defensive style of play.
Among all defensive midfielders who have played at least 270 minutes, he has the lowest average number of passes per game, namely 31.
In comparison, Ruben Neves has dished out an average of 83 passes per game, Marcelo Brozovic is on 74 while Enzo Fernandez records 72. In raw numbers, only 8 passes are played by Amrabat going forward on average each game.
However, the fact that Amrabat is not very prominent on the ball is only a result of the role that coach Walid Regragui assigns him on the pitch. In fact, for his club side Fiorentina, he has shown that he can also be very useful in the midfield.
Together with Rolando Mandragora (25), they form a duo who regularly create dangerous situations with passes from their own third and the middle of the pitch. Although Fiorentina are only 10th in the Serie A table, they have no problem in midfield, as only Danilo Cataldi of Lazio and Ismael Bennacer of AC Milan are better in this respect.
Amrabat is also very active in the final third of the pitch for his club, as the numbers suggest. Although he doesn't play an attacking role, he sends an average of 3 passes per game into the opponent's penalty area, which is an excellent return.
Moreover, no other defensive midfielder in Serie A gets the ball into the final third as often as he does.
However, his biggest assets for Fiorentina are his runs with the ball. No other defensive midfielder in Serie A makes more of them per game, and no other increases his team's chances of scoring to such an extent.
Although Amrabat has shone in this World Cup as a combative defensive player in the middle of the park, he is attracting interest from big clubs, including Liverpool, largely because of his ability on the ball. However, that doesn't change the fact that, in today's game, he will be expected to put in another flawless and pugnacious defensive display.
Incidentally, Amrabat is said to have arrived in Qatar with a lot of back trouble and is only able to play thanks to painkilling injections. As if we needed any more proof of how much of a warrior this player is and how much Morocco will want to win today.
Follow all the action from the third-place playoff on Flashscore.
