{"id":294632,"date":"2026-06-03T17:18:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T17:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/294632\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T17:18:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T17:18:23","slug":"marco-pasalic-world-cup-profile-croatia-orlando-city-midfielder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/294632\/","title":{"rendered":"Marco Pa\u0161ali\u0107: World Cup profile | Croatia &#038; Orlando City midfielder"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/clubs\/orlando-city\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Orlando City<\/a> Designated Player, the 25-year-old is one of the most exciting players in MLS and will now help guide Croatia at the 2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/competitions\/fifa-world-cup\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">FIFA World Cup<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Pa\u0161ali\u0107 is one of two MLS attackers on the Croatia roster, alongside <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/clubs\/fc-dallas\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FC Dallas<\/a>\u00a0striker\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/players\/petar-musa\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Petar Musa<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Age:\u00a025<br \/>\nHometown: Karlsruhe, Germany<\/p>\n<p>\n      MLS background<\/p>\n<p>A key part of Orlando City&#8217;s attack, Pa\u0161ali\u0107 brings a creative edge to the Lions&#8217; front-three.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Initially <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/news\/orlando-city-sign-dp-winger-marco-pasalic\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">joining the club<\/a> as a Designated Player from Croatian top-flight side HNK Rijeka, ahead of the 2025 season, he helped Orlando qualify for the Audi 2025 MLS Cup Playoffs, scoring 12g\/5a in his first 33 regular-season games.<\/p>\n<p>This season, he has remained a constant piece of Orlando\u2019s setup and will look to team up with Atl\u00e9tico Madrid legend, Antoine Griezmann, who will join the club after the World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>14g\/6a in 43 MLS appearances<br \/>\n2025 MLS All-Star<\/p>\n<p>\n      International experience<\/p>\n<p>Born in Germany but eligible for Croatia, Pa\u0161ali\u0107 is among a new wave of talents starring for the Vatreni.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He made his international debut against Latvia in November 2023 and has since played 14 times for his country, providing two assists as a key part of Croatia&#8217;s World Cup qualification success.<\/p>\n<p>After joining Croatia&#8217;s UEFA Euro and Nations League squads in 2024, Pa\u0161ali\u0107 will be making his first World Cup appearance in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>\n      World Cup schedule<\/p>\n<p>Croatia are in Group L alongside England, Panama and Ghana.<\/p>\n<p>June 17:\u00a0Croatia vs. England, 4 pm ET | Dallas, Texas<br \/>\nJune 23:\u00a0Croatia vs. Panama, 7 pm ET | Toronto, Ontario<br \/>\nJune 27:\u00a0Croatia vs. Ghana, 5 pm ET | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania<\/p>\n<p>The 2026 World Cup has expanded from the usual 32 nations to 48 total. The top two teams advance from each group, and the top eight third-place finishers also make the knockout phase (Round of 32).<\/p>\n<p>The tournament, which is co-hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada, spans from June 11 to July 19.<\/p>\n<p>\n      World Cup history<\/p>\n<p>This is Croatia\u2019s seventh overall World Cup appearance.<\/p>\n<p>The country has advanced to the semifinals at the last two tournaments, losing to France in the final in Russia in 2018 and falling to eventual champions Argentina in the semifinals in Qatar in 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n      How Croatia qualified<\/p>\n<p>Croatia punched their ticket to the World Cup by winning Group L of the European (UEFA) World Cup qualifiers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Orlando City Designated Player, the 25-year-old is one of the most exciting players in MLS and will&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[56396,38585,7700,139,4786,141,140,4959,9611],"class_list":["post-294632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-croatia","tag-essentials","tag-marco-pasalic","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-city","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-sendtonews","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}