{"id":294810,"date":"2026-06-03T19:33:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T19:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/294810\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T19:33:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T19:33:08","slug":"marco-pasalic-world-cup-profile-croatia-orlando-city-midfielder-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/294810\/","title":{"rendered":"Marco Pa\u0161ali\u0107: World Cup profile | Croatia &#038; Orlando City midfielder"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/clubs\/orlando-city\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Orlando City<\/a> winger is among the most exciting attackers 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 forwards 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&#8217;s attack, Pa\u0161ali\u0107 brings a creative edge to their front three.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/news\/orlando-city-sign-dp-winger-marco-pasalic\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">joined the Lions<\/a> from Croatian top-flight side HNK Rijeka ahead of the 2025 season, and helped them qualify for the Audi 2025 MLS Cup Playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>This season, Pa\u0161ali\u0107 has remained goal-dangerous and will soon team up with Atl\u00e9tico Madrid legend <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/players\/antoine-griezmann\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Antoine Griezmann<\/a>, who will join Orlando in July.<\/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>The former Borussia Dortmund forward made his international debut in November 2023 and has played 14 times for his country, providing two assists in 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 compete at his first World Cup 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, which runs from June 11 to July 19, has expanded from the usual 32 nations to 48 total.<\/p>\n<p>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>\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 the final to France in 2018 and falling to eventual champions Argentina in the semifinals in 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n      How Croatia qualified<\/p>\n<p>Croatia punched their World Cup ticket by winning Group L of the European (UEFA) World Cup qualifiers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Orlando City winger is among the most exciting attackers in MLS and will now help guide Croatia&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[56396,7700,139,4786,141,140,122476,4959,9611],"class_list":["post-294810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-croatia","tag-marco-pasalic","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-city","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-player-profiles","tag-sendtonews","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294810","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=294810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294810\/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=294810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}