Mateo Kovacic the magician.
Chelsea’s magnificent midfielder was the heart and mind of Croatia’s impressive World Cup win over Canada yesterday.
He made light-work of the opposition, demonstrating his abilities as a truly class act with the statistics to back it up.
The 28-year-old may not have directly contributed to a goal, but he did virtually everything else expected of a four-time Champions League winner.
According to Opta, Kovacic made five tackles and created four chances against Canada, while also maintaining a passing accuracy of 93%.
Impressive, right? There’s more.
The last player to equal or surpass each stat in a single World Cup fixture was Germany’s Lothar Matthaus in 1990, who made six tackles, created five chances and had a passing accuracy of 95% against Yugoslavia.
Interestingly, Germany – known as West Germany then – won that game 4-1, mirroring the exact result Croatia inflicted upon Canada on Sunday.
Kovacic wows at World Cup
Not many people have mentioned Mateo and Matthaus in the same breath, but they have now.
They will be speaking about them more often together if Chelsea’s £40m maestro can achieve further success on the international stage.
Croatia now just need to draw with Belgium to ensure their passage to the knockout rounds.
From there, they will be aiming to replicate their run to the final they managed in Russia four-years ago.
Kovacic didn’t make it on to the pitch as his country were defeated by France in the finale, so will be after redemption this time around.
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