The FIFA World Cup’s third-place playoff will be played between Croatia and Morocco at the Khalifa International Stadium on Saturday.
Historically, the third-place fixture of the football World Cup between the losing sides of each semifinal is usually played on the eve of the final.
Germany holds the record of finishing third on most occasions in the World Cup - four. Four sides - Poland, France, Sweden and Brazil - have placed third twice.
Uruguay has played the most third-place playoff matches without winning it even once - in 1954, 1970 and 2000.
Argentina and Spain are the only World Cup winning teams to have not played the World Cup third-place playoffs. However, Spain finished fourth in 1950 in a round-robin format.
The organisers often consider this match to be of low priority and thus the game is often scheduled in one of the smaller stadia. However, that is not always the scenario. The Rose Bowl stadium hosted both the third-place and final match of the 1994 World Cup. The venue saw a record attendance of 91,500 for the third-place decider.
In Qatar 2022, Lusail Stadium, with an official capacity of 80,000 will host the final between Argentina and France. Meanwhile, a total of 40,000 people will be expected to back their respective sides at the Khalifa International Stadium during the third-place deciding game.
The third-place winner will receive a prize money of $27 million (INR 220 crore), $15 million less than the amount the champion will receive.
All third-place playoffs results thus far -
| FIFA World Cup edition | Third-place winner | Fourth-placed team | Score at full-time | Remarks |
| 1930 | United States of America | Yugoslavia | - | No third-place decider. FIFA decided winners based on overall performance in tournament. |
| 1934 | Germany | Austria | 3-2 | - |
| 1938 | Brazil | Sweden | 4-2 | - |
| 1950 | Sweden | Spain | - | Won in a new round-robin format. |
| 1954 | Austria | Uruguay | 3-1 | - |
| 1958 | France | West Germany | 6-3 | - |
| 1962 | Chile | Yugoslavia | 1-0 | - |
| 1966 | Portugal | Soviet Union | 2-1 | - |
| 1970 | West Germany | Uruguay | 1-0 | - |
| 1974 | Poland | Brazil | 1-0 | - |
| 1978 | Brazil | Italy | 2-1 | - |
| 1982 | Poland | France | 3-2 | - |
| 1986 | France | Belgium | 4-2 | - |
| 1990 | Italy | England | 2-1 | - |
| 1994 | Sweden | Bulgaria | 4-0 | - |
| 1998 | Croatia | Netherlands | 2-1 | - |
| 2002 | Turkey | South Korea | 3-2 | - |
| 2006 | Germany | Portugal | 3-1 | - |
| 2010 | Germany | Uruguay | 3-2 | - |
| 2014 | Netherlands | Brazil | 3-0 | - |
| 2018 | Belgium | England | 2-0 | - |
| 2022 | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Comments
SHARE