Panama and Serbia are playing on the World Cup friendly schedule and this might as well be Brazil for them, as neither team is in the tournament and this match starts up at 7 pm ET at Toyota Park and comes before some big matches on Sunday with the United States, Germany, France and Cameroon are all in action.
The United States eliminated Panama in World Cup qualifying and that gave Mexico a chance to remain alive and now they are into the tournament and so is the US. The United States team is in the group of death with Portugal, Germany and Ghana and they will have a rough matchup once they start the tournament. The United State knocked out Panama with late goals from Graham Zusi and Aron Johannsson and that allowed Mexico to stay alive and now Panama is playing for some pride.
Panama played to a 3-2 game with the United States and lost to get eliminated and now they are playing Serbia.
Check here for the Panama and Serbia live coverage.
Croatia manager Niko Kovac has been working his team before the friendly and he knows they will get started early with the first game of the tournament. Croatia comes in after pulling a draw with Switzerland in March in their last friendly and that was against another team that will be in the World Cup competition. The same goes for the next matchup with Australia the week before the tournament and that will be another good test for the club. Croatia came in over Iceland and that was in a playoff and now the team is looking to get some momentum heading into Sao Paulo for the Brazil opener. Croatia has not had the best run with just three wins in the last 10 and this will be a chance for the team to gain some confidence against a nation that will not be in the World Cup.
Croatia struggled in the group set and then played against the Icelandic team and had a 2-0 win the second leg to advance and now the team has the Australian team coming after this friendly. The team had a nice run years ago and Mali comes in after a loss against Guinea and they did not make it into the World Cup and other games on Saturday include Portugal against Greece, Albania against Romania and Norway taking on Russia. The US is in the group of death with Portugal, Germany and Ghana, while other big matchups include England and Italy, the Ivory Coast and Japan as well as France and Honduras in the first round.
