World Cup 2022 LIVE: Argentina v Croatia team news and lineups from semi-final as Lionel Messi starts with Luka Modric

Luka Modric stands alongside Davor Suker as the greatest footballing talents the small nation of Croatia has produced.

Modric has made the most World Cup appearances (17) and most appearances at major tournaments (30) for the national team.

He is set to become just the fourth player in the history of the tournament to start six matches aged 37 or older, after: Nilton Santos for Brazil in 1962, Dino Zoff for Italy in 1982 and Peter Shilton for England in 1990.

Croatia have won all four of their penalty shootouts at the World Cup, knocking out Japan and Brazil in the last 16 and quarter-finals in 2022 respectively.

The only nation to win more penalty shootouts in the competition are Argentina, with five.

The first roar of the night is for Lionel Messi, whose face fills the big screens in the four corners of the Lusail Stadium as he leads Argentina out to warm out.

Each set of fans has an allocation of supporters behind each goal, but the rest of the seats are almost exclusively filled with fans backing Argentina, and very few pockets of red and white checks in between.

We may be closer to Croatia geographically but this is virtually a home match for the Argentinians.

Croatia were not the favourites to reach the last four again but they came through two penalty shootouts in a repeat of their 2018 exploits.

“They have troubled many national teams. I won’t mention the key players or their strengths and weaknesses but we’ve analysed where we can hurt them. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t,” he said.

Lionel Scaloni defended his players’ behaviour during and after their quarter-final victory over the Netherlands. 17 yellow cards were shown in a tension filled encounter that bubbled over on numerous occasions before Argentina triumphed in the penalty shootout.

“The previous game was played the way we had to play – for both teams. That’s football,” Scaloni said. “In some games things can happen like this. There can be arguments but that’s all. That’s why there’s a referee.

“We need to put an end to this idea of thinking Argentina behave like this. We lost to Saudi Arabia and we didn’t say anything.

“We won the Copa America in Brazil and experienced the most sporting behaviour with [Lionel] Messi, [Leandro] Paredes, Neymar, who were all sitting together in the tunnel in the Maracana [Stadium]. I’m really not convinced of this idea of unsporting behaviour.”

Who will be advancing to the World Cup final?

There a supporters from both sets of fans in attendance tonight but the majority seem to be favouring Argentina and Lionel Messi.

Argentina have won just one of their last seven World Cup games against European sides (with three draws and three defeats), beating Poland 2-0 in the group stage this year.

However, two of those three draws have resulted in penalty shootout victories.

Croatia were losing finalists in 2018, and could become the fourth European nation to reach consecutive World Cup finals after Italy (1934, 1938), Netherlands (1974, 1978) and Germany (1982, 1986, 1990).

As Lionel Messi starts to find the right words to go with the right touches, some of them surprisingly aggressive, there’s been a telling phrase used to describe him around the Argentina camp.

They talk of the 35-year-old as a “líder Maradonina”, a Maradona-like leader.

After his first major moment of the World Cup 2022, which was that essential and exceptional goal against Mexico, Messi was seen looking to the sky and mouthing “gracias Diego”. His teammates now speak of the “spirit of Diego”, and the 35-year-old is also being described as a “man possessed”.

Argentina are looking to reach the World Cup final for the sixth time, a figure bettered only by Germany with eight.

They’ve never been eliminated at the semi-final stage before, most recently beating the Netherlands in 2014.