Croatia edge Panama 1-0 in Toronto to stay alive at the World Cup

Croatia arrived in Toronto carrying the weight of an opening loss to England, and for 64 minutes on Tuesday night they carried the weight of a second. Then Ante Budimir, a 34-year-old forward who had spent the night on the substitutes' bench, rose to meet a cross and steered Croatia past a stubborn Panama side 1-0 — a result that eliminated the Central Americans and kept the 2018 finalists' round-of-32 ambitions intact.

The match at Toronto's World Cup venue stayed goalless through a first half in which Panama, dead last in FIFA's ranking of the six CONCACAF entrants, defended with the kind of discipline that has carried the program through three prior World Cup qualifying cycles. Croatia, the 2018 finalists and 2022 bronze medallists, controlled possession but struggled to convert territory into clear chances, and the half-time scoreline reflected a contest that had been tighter than the FIFA rankings suggested it would be.

A bench that changed the game

Budimir entered in the second half and broke the deadlock within minutes of coming on, finishing a cross from the right to give Croatia the goal their possession had demanded. The strike was a reminder of why Zlatko Dalić has leaned on the Osasuna forward as a Plan B option: he offers a different aerial profile to the fluid front line that started against Panama, and against a defence that had stayed compact for an hour, a different profile was what the game required.

France 24's match report described the goal as "a second-half strike from substitute Ante Budimir," and Sky Sports' write-up credited the goal with "igniting Croatia's World Cup" after a stuttering opening loss to England. The win moves Croatia to three points in Group L and leaves their path to the knockout stage open heading into the final matchday, with progression dependent on other results as much as their own.

Panama's tournament ends where it began — on the road

For Panama, the loss confirms elimination from the group stage. The BBC's report on the match noted that Panama are "knocked out of the World Cup following the loss," bringing to a close a tournament the program had reached for the first time in 2018 and returned to in 2022. Head coach Thomas Christiansen had framed the group as one in which Panama would look to compete in every match rather than chase results, and the first-half resistance against a Croatia side that finished third at the previous World Cup in Qatar was consistent with that brief. The second-half goal, however, exposed the gap in squad depth that rankings had already signalled.

Panama's campaign will be remembered less for the scorelines than for what it represented: a sixth CONCACAF nation in the expanded 48-team field, a country that qualified by finishing third in the final round of CONCACAF qualifying, and a program that continues to punch above its demographic and financial weight in a confederation dominated by Mexico, the United States and Canada.

What the result does to Group L

Croatia's three points leave them second in the group behind England, who beat them in the opener. The 2018 finalists' final group match will determine whether they advance to the round of 32 as group runners-up or as one of the best third-placed teams advancing under the tournament's expanded format. The structure of the 2026 edition — 12 groups of four, with the top two and eight best third-placed teams advancing — means Croatia are not yet safe, but they are no longer reliant on help from elsewhere in the way they were at half-time on Tuesday.

Panama, meanwhile, finish their tournament against a third Group L opponent. The result in Toronto is the second of three matches for both teams in the group, with the final matchday scheduled in the coming days.

Stakes and what remains uncertain

The stakes for Croatia are existential in a tournament sense: a nation that reached the final four years ago and the semi-finals four years before that cannot afford a group-stage exit at a World Cup held, in part, in neighbouring countries with large Croatian diaspora communities across North America. For Panama, the tournament is over but the longer project — consolidating as the sixth credible CONCACAF nation behind the three hosts and Costa Rica and Honduras — continues beyond Toronto.

What the wire reports do not specify is the exact minute of Budimir's goal or the identity of the assist beyond Sky Sports' description of "a strike" that "ignited" the Croatian performance. The broadcast feeds from FIFA's official channel and The Athletic's match coverage confirm only the scoreline, the venue and the goalscorer. Any further detail — the assist, the minute, the expected-goals profile — would require sources not present in this thread.

The result leaves Croatia needing a win or a favourable combination of results in their final group match to extend their stay in North America beyond the group stage. For a team that has reached at least the semi-finals of the last two World Cups, anything less than progression will be read, fairly or not, as regression.

Desk note: this piece treats the match as a competitive group-stage fixture rather than a narrative about Croatia's ageing core or Panama's developmental trajectory — both real stories, but neither supported by the source material in this thread. Wire reporting emphasised the result, the goalscorer and the group-stage implications; the analysis above stays inside that frame.