Croatia World Cup star Andrej Kramaric leaves pitch in tears after injury in Morocco tie | Football | Sport
Croatia striker Andrej Kramaric left the pitch in tears after he was substituted with an injury in his side’s World Cup third-place play-off against Morocco. The Hoffenheim striker appeared to pull a muscle as he broke forward and put a cross into the box, but his pass was comfortably collected by goalkeeper Yassine Bounou.
BBC commentator Steve Wilson suggested that the assistant’s flag should have been raised earlier to prevent the injury, as the linesman called for offside after the play had ended but in a stretch to cross the ball, Kramaric picked up a muscle injury when he pulled up.
Kramaric was running onto a through ball, unknowingly offside, when he attempted to get a third for his side by sprinting towards the corner flag and delivered a cross, but Lovro Majer was not on the same wavelength and darted towards the edge of the box, rather than the six-yard area.
As the ball was still in play, he walked back towards the middle of the pitch to help prevent a Morocco attack, but was forced to go down for a second time before he was helped off the pitch by Croatia’s medical staff as he emotionally left the pitch to end his tournament.
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Morocco equalised shortly after when Hakim Ziyech’s deflected cross was headed into the back of the net by Achraf Dari. Croatia took the lead once again before half-time when Mislav Orsic carefully placed the ball over Bounou to score with a fine strike.
There was then penalty controversy in the second half, when Gvardiol was brought down in the Moroccan area but the referee did not award a penalty and was not overturned by VAR. Wilson claimed that it was “the clearest penalty you will see, one of the worst decisions you would hope to see, or not hope to see.”
However Kramaric’s attention will have soon turned to club football, after scoring twice in Qatar he will hope that his injury picked up was not a serious one and he can return to Bundesliga action when his side take on Union Berlin in mid-January.
