As much as I am happy to have seen Croatia play in the finals, as I happen to hail from that part of the world myself, yet reflecting on the 2 games; Denark and then France, Croats did worse.
Australia 1, France 2.       Australia 1, Denmark 1, 
Croatia 1 Denmark 1         Croatia 2 France 4.
Socceroos could have drawn against the French if it wasn't for the second, the flukiest goal of the tournament or the dubious penalty.
Similarly, Mandza  scoring the luckiest goal of the entire Comp.
IMHO, Arron Mooy's performance was superior to that  of Luka Modric against the Froggies, in their respective games.
Croland after blasting their way through the Quolifying rounds rather rode their luck in the K.O. games apart the duel with overhyped Poms.

Difference being Australia played them their very first game and still couldn't even get a draw against France while Croatia played them in the final, big difference. 

As if Croatia did get a draw?  They fared much worse!

What?!  OP is on drugs.  Croatia would cane our arses.

Christ on a bike.  

And Luxembourg got a draw against France, which means they are the 2nd best team in the world. What incredibly awful logic

Terrible logic, different circumstances entirely.

Whose our Modric, Rakitic & Perisic?

> Applying the transitivity property to football
Are you 12 or just retarded?

On another positive note England lost more games than Australia at this World Cup

What?

Australia had the easiest chance to beat France since it was their FIRST game, you mentioned the draw first, something Australia couldn't even do when France was at their weakest.

Comparing that to Croatia playing them in the fucking final is quite stupid, just like your post. 

😂

Only better in the final 3rd, we just cannc fucking score 

I agree that Croatia are currently better than Australia. 

Having said that, the logic that I find baffling is when people say that Australia had it easier against the French, as it was the French team's first game at the World Cup.  It was Australia's first game at the World Cup under a new coach.  

Following that same logic, you could easily argue that Croatia had more games and more to play for when facing the French and the Danes than what the Aussies did.   I am not saying this is the case, but following the same flawed logic through, you could arrive at that conclusion.

Croatia     P7 W6 
Australia   P3 W0

This. 
Croatia were in fact better than everybody in the final third though at this world cup.
They are a solid, highly credentialled side with a great ability to make things happen inside the box. They also showed they could play through opposing defences as well. 
They have it all over us in the final third. It is our major downfall.

Because teams very rarely start at the peak of their powers, they improve as the tournament goes on and conserve their energy. That was probably the biggest reason for their success over Croatia in the end, France absolutely cruised through the groups, no pressing and staying very compact and grinded out the results they needed. Then when required to up the intensity they tore apart Argentina and Croatia in which the latter could barely run the entire 2nd half because they were absolutely cooked.

The problem Bert and Ange faced is during the world cup they had our players running so much, we couldn't match our opponents technically so we had to make up for the fact by playing with a much higher intensity than our opponents. It helped us be competitive the first couple matches but against Peru and Spain our lack of fitness was evident. That is what Deschamps managed to do so well this tournament, he kept the squad fresh because there is absolutely no point playing a high intensity in matches where you don't need to do it

And in midfield with Modric and Rakitic absolutely carving teams up, they were so good in the final 3rd because there midfield absolutely dominated everyone they came up against and created great chances for themselves and their forwards.

Agree with this, Modric and Rakitic are on a completely different level than anything Australia has (that's why Croatia made it to the final, and Australia took the early plane home with 1 point).

Also, in three group games we scored two goals from pens, and rarely bothered the keeper.  Compare to Croatia, in the 7 games they must have had at least 100 shots on goal.

Seriously, it's chalk and cheese.

Only (lol) 3-4 goals different on ability at the moment. Practically, they’d probably be happy to sit on a 1-0 lead in a group stage game and step it up a gear if we levelled tbh.

It sucks that France won it playing such cynical football most of the time. They just don't play until they have to and it's really boring to watch. 

It's really been a horror world cup in terms of playing styles. Most teams, whether big or small, South American or European, play exactly the same non-descript defensive football, almost exclusively relying on counter attacks and set pieces to score. It's a pretty miserable trend. 

having the one of the best CF's in the world in Mandzukic who is severely underrated does help. They also have 2 of the best midfielders in the world. people whinge it was boring lol.. it was 4-2 most WC's are boring as fuck 1-0.

It is a shame Belgium didn't beat France, served up their weakest performance of the tournament just as the final was within touching distance.

Every game has its own 90min. These match comparisons do go through the mind but no 2 games are the same really.

We had France early and they didn't seem to be working well yet. In saying that, our shape was excellent and held them out more. I was amazed how we maintained the ball and the notion that we handle ourselves better against attacking sides who are better was more than confirmed. Can we just somehow adapt this control mechanism in Asia and find that final touch to score. More gaps appear in AFC defences. 

Croatia had the majority of possession. If you don't use it, it's useless. France were clinical last night. In hindsight a ref might not have given Griezmann the free or the penalty.

Do you believe that one call effects every single movement and decision the rest of the game? Some people do. Perhaps it's looking into it too much. How far back do you go to say that goal or moment could have been prevented?

After a few beers I almost posted a thread 'Were Australia France's toughest opponent?' as mentioned, no 2 games are the same. However, Peru seemed much more hectic against France, Denmark were drab and calculated a 0:0. Argentina took it to them but were also terrible at the back. Efficient against Uruguay. Slow but results orientated against Belgium and used Croatia's fatigue and disorganisation to their advantage.

I'd say we showed a good account of ourselves against France. If we'd held on for a draw it'd have been nice to have on the record. It won't count for much and non Roos fans will forget it but a bit more positivity could be taken out of our tournament. 

If we played Croatia tomorrow, we'd probably lose 2:0 or draw 1:1.

I felt we were trying to walk it in and we couldn't even do that. Shots can lead to keeper fumbles and all kinds of things. I wish we'd just hit it a bit more. 

Yes you only get 3 world cup group games but for me I really want to see Australia play again very soon. Unfortunately the situation has changed again and I don't know if we'll even build on our world cup efforts. Arnold will have a different strategy and it could be excellent or flop completely. 

Attention Keyboard warriors: Under no sense did I suggest that Australia is a better footballing side than Croatia, we only fared better against France, Thass all !!!

Please reread my post where I only referred to the 2 specific oponents.
FFS, Which part did yous not understand?
Now, pissoffski!

Australia da best!

Is Croatia really much better than the Socceroos

Then you use the results of similar matches to try and prove your point. You might want to read what you wrote

Croatia has players playing for Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus, Liverpool, Inter

We had players in the second division of england

If Luongo had a different nationality he'd be at Palace or Sampdoria. 

Croatia have a lot more quality players at big leagues compared to us where we lucky to have only a couple at best.

Talk about chalk and cheese comparison.

Somebody is spending too much time on FIFA it seems...