Croatia star Mateo Kovacic has revealed that his Chelsea teammates joked that he and Morocco's Hakim Ziyech would be the first Blues back from the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
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According to the Croatia playmaker, his club teammates expected the 2018 FIFA World Cup finalists and the north African giants to bow out of the global showpiece early, but of all the nations featuring a member of Graham Potter's side in Qatar, it was Kovacic and Ziyech's teams that went the furthest in the tournament.
"The other [Chelsea] players expected me and Ziyech to come home first but I am proud we are still here," Kovacic said prior to Walid Regragui and Zlatko Dalic's second encounter at the tournament in the third-place play-off on the weekend, as per Goal.
Kovacic managed to get the better of Ziyech in the third-place play-off as the Croatians finished in a podium position for the second successive World Cup, with a 2-1 win over the 1976 Africa Cup of Nations winners ensuring them a bronze medal.
The next best-performing participants hailing from Stamford Bridge were England duo Mason Mount and Raheem Sterling and Brazil's Thiago Silva, who saw their nations knocked out at the quarter-final stage.
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While Kovacic left west London for Qatar as a regular starter despite recent injury troubles, Ziyech will return to the English capital with a bit more uncertainty surrounding his name.
The 29-year-old has started only two games for the two-time European champions so far in the 2022/23 campaign, and there is speculation that an exit from Stamford Bridge is on the cards as early as January.
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