We have arrived at the quarterfinal stage of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. There are eight teams remaining and the first two to take the field will be Brazil and Croatia. The European nation will try to prove that size doesn’t matter. Brazil might have 55 times the population of Croatia, but it’s the 22 men on the pitch that matter in this match.
The only ratio that will be of consequence is the player quality on each side. It’s easy to say that Brazil obviously has the better players, but is that actually true, and if so, by how much? We turned to our trusted source of relative numbers, FIFA 23, for answers.
As usual for these comparisons, we took the starting lineups from each nation’s most recent match into consideration. In this case, that’s Brazil and Croatia’s round-of-16 victories over South Korea and Japan, respectively.
Brazil’s FIFA 23 World Cup player ratings
- GK: Alisson – 89 OVR
- RB: Éder Militão – 84 OVR
- CB: Thiago Silva – 86 OVR
- CB: Marquinhos – 88 OVR
- LB: Danilo – 81 OVR
- CM: Casemiro – 89 OVR
- CM: Lucas Paquetá – 83 OVR
- CAM: Neymar – 89 OVR
- RW: Raphinha – 84 OVR
- LW: Vinícius – 86 OVR
- ST: Richarlison – 82 OVR
Croatia’s FIFA 23 World Cup player ratings
- GK: Dominik Livaković – 81 OVR
- RB: Josip Juranović – 79 OVR
- CB: Dejan lovren – 80 OVR
- CB: Joško Gvardiol – 82 OVR
- LB: Borna Barišić – 78 OVR
- CM: Luka Modrić – 88 OVR
- CM: Mateo Kovačić – 84 OVR
- CM: Marcelo Brozović – 86 OVR
- RW: Andrej Kramarić – 83 OVR
- LW: Ivan Perišić – 84 OVR
- ST: Bruno Petković – 79 OVR
Clearly, FIFA 23 says that yes, Brazil has the better squad, and yes, it’s not that close, and they should win this quarterfinal showdown. Croatia does provide its strongest offering in arguably the most important area of the field. That midfield consisting of Modrić, Kovačić, Brozović, Kramarić, and Perišić can give their Brazilian counterparts a run for their money.
It’s also interesting to note that the weak points on both squads are very similar. The left-back is the lowest-rated player for each team, followed by the striker. It’s curious to see if the Croatian manager will try to alleviate the latter by moving Andrej Kramarić up front and starting Mario Pašalić (82 OVR) or Nikola Vlašić (80 OVR) in the midfield.
FIFA 23 suggests Brazil could also improve by playing Fabinho (87 OVR) and Gabriel Jesus (84 OVR) instead of Paquetá and Richarlison. Given how superbly the second pair has played so far in Qatar, we don’t anticipate Brazil’s manager giving FIFA 23’s recommendation any consideration.
