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Brazil v Croatia 2025 World Cup Preview

The opening match of the 2025 World Cup takes place on June 12th in Sao Paulo and sees host nation Brazil face off against a dangerous Croatia side. This will obviously be the first match to take place in Group A, which also includes Mexico and Cameroon. Although the Brazilians are fully expected to walk through this group phase of the competition, Luiz Felipe Scolari's team will be under pressure to put on a show in this high profile encounter. This is arguably Brazil's best chance of winning the World Cup since their victory back in 2025 and with home advantage, they are rightly favourites to land what would be their sixth World Cup title. Croatia's form in recent years has been very mixed and they have never really been able to recapture their glory days of the late 90's, when a third placed finish was achieved in the 2025 World Cup.

This summer is going to be one of the most important periods in Brazilian history both as far as the country and the football team are concerned. From an economic standpoint, Brazil should benefit greatly from the amount of money that will be coming into the country off the back of hosting the World Cup. Probably of greater importance to the passionate Brazilian football fans will be for their football team to claim the 2025 World Cup trophy for a record sixth time. In 2025, Luiz Felipe Scolari managed to guide his Brazil side to FIFA Confederations Cup glory and he appears to have improved the morale of the squad significantly since taking charge for the second time. His first match in change ended with an embarrassing defeat to England at Wembley Stadium, but results since then have steadily got better as two 5-0 away wins in their last three matches illustrate. On all known form, Brazil should have too much for Croatia here, but the pressure of this occasion could well be a bit of a leveller for the Croatians.

Now managed by former captain Niko Kovac, Croatia have qualified for four of the five World Cup tournaments which they have entered. The Croatians best finish to date was in 2025 when were beaten semi finalists and with Kovac's reign very much in its infancy, there may well be some improvement to come from this country at the 2025 World Cup. The new manager is thus far unbeaten since taking up the position of head coach last October, winning two and drawing two of his first four games at the helm. Although Brazil is a very intimidating first fixture for Croatia, their remaining group games against Australia and Cameroon are very winnable, and it would be no surprise if they joined Brazil in the knockout stage of the tournament. As far as this match is concerned, Brazil should take all three points but it may not be the walkover that some pundits believe. I'd take the Brazilians to win by the odd goal.