Croatia Survived Ghana. Dalic Cannot Survive Portugal Like This
Croatia beat Ghana 2-1 at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia on June 28, 2026, finishing second in Group L behind England and setting up a round of 32 match against Portugal. Zlatko Dalic will call it job done. The performance underneath the scoreline tells a different story, and it is the one that should worry him heading into Lisbon’s old guard.
Petar Sucic struck from outside the box in the 31st minute, Derrick Luckassen leveled for Ghana in the 73rd after a four-minute VAR delay, and Nikola Vlasic headed in Luka Modric’s corner in the 83rd to settle it. Croatia finished with 0.42 expected goals to Ghana’s 0.64. A team that created less, and created it less convincingly, walked away with the points. That is not a disaster. It is also not the platform you want heading into a knockout match against a side that will punish exactly this kind of underperformance.
Here is the decision that gets Dalic through tonight with his job safe: bringing on Mario Pasalic.
Pasalic entered in the 78th minute, minutes after Ghana had leveled, and Croatia needed a spark rather than another body to sit in midfield. Within four minutes he had forced a smart save out of Benjamin Asare from outside the box. The save led directly to the corner that Modric swung in for Vlasic’s winner. Pasalic’s introduction changed the angle and the urgency of Croatia’s attack at the exact moment the game threatened to slip away. Dalic read the moment correctly and the substitution paid off within five minutes, which is about as clean a vindication as a manager gets.
Now the decision that will follow Hugo Broos’s opposite number, Otto Addo, into next week.
Addo’s logic in starting Kamaldeen Sulemana and Jordan Ayew up front was sound on paper. Both bring direct running and Ghana needed pace against a Croatia back line built more for control than speed. The problem was patience. Ghana managed only one shot on target through 70 minutes and looked toothless until Ernest Nuamah arrived from the bench in the 71st minute and changed the entire complexion of the game within two.
It took Nuamah just two minutes to set up Luckassen’s equalizer with a delivery that Sulemana and Ayew had not threatened to produce all match. The logic behind starting the front two was not unreasonable. The execution never arrived, and it took a substitute to show what had been missing.
The number that follows Ghana out of the group stage, even with their advancement already secured, is one shot on target in the opening seventy minutes against a Croatia defense that was there to be got at. Marvin Senaya and Caleb Yirenkyi both worked hard late on, but the front line simply did not show up until the introduction of a player who started the match on the bench.
Make no mistake, Ghana leave this tournament with something to be proud of regardless. A first knockout stage appearance since 2010 is not nothing, and Addo’s side will face Colombia next with confidence rather than dread.
Dalic, though, faces the harder question.
Croatia conceded a goal worth 0.54 expected goals from six yards out, the kind of chance that better finishing punishes every time. Against Portugal, finishing of that quality will not be in short supply. Modric, at 40 years and 291 days old, became the oldest player to register an assist at a World Cup on the corner that won the match. That is a wonderful story for one night. It is also a reminder of exactly how much of Croatia’s creative burden still runs through a player closer to retirement than his prime.
Still, a win is a win, and knockout football rewards survivors over stylists.
Croatia move on with the result they needed and a performance that will not be good enough again. Ghana go home with their dignity and a front line that arrived twenty minutes too late. Dalic’s job is not under any threat tonight. His next ninety minutes, against a Portugal side with considerably sharper finishing than Ghana’s, will tell us whether tonight was a blip or a pattern.