With a reputation for outperforming its size, and a record that would be the envy of most teams, Croatia touched down in Dallas knowing it would pose a challenge to England and hoping it could leave one of the tournament’s favorites reeling.This Croatian side possesses a formidable resume: consecutive World Cup podium finishes, a manager with victories over football giants like Brazil and France, and the legendary Luka Modric embarking on his fifth tournament at the age of 40.Nobody picks against Croatia lightly. Except when it’s the first game. Then, have at it.England beat them 4-2 at AT&T Stadium on Wednesday, extending one of football’s stranger streaks. Croatia has now lost their tournament opener in four of their past six World Cups — 2002, 2006, 2014, 2026 — against one win (Nigeria, 2018) and one draw (Morocco, 2022). Since 2002, only Australia has lost as many matchday-one games at the finals.It’s a startling number for a team that isn’t an underdog by any normal measure.Croatia is ranked 11th in the world by FIFA and is regularly cited as a side to take seriously, capable of going as deep as anyone. Teams with that kind of pedigree aren’t supposed to make a habit of losing the first game, but Croatia has built one anyway.A dejected Ivan Perisic departs at the end (Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images)Once again, on Wednesday, its experienced core made some costly individual errors, turning this World Cup opener into a shootout with an opponent they couldn’t keep up with — even though this group has reliably found its form before and gone deep into the knockout rounds.Twenty-four hours before the match, Modric had spoken about the respect Croatia receives from teams in the World Cup. Asked about a country of under four million people that keeps going deep in World Cup tournaments, he said: “We respect everyone, but we’re not afraid of anyone.”There is no doubt that is true — Croatia came out of the gates with an aggressive press against England, eager to force them into costly mistakes. The shoe found the other foot quickly.Croatia was a frustrating watch for its fans. Four times the ball hit the net before half-time. It was only the eighth World Cup match in history to see both sides score twice before the break, and just the second since 2002. Every goal ran straight through either Croatia’s class or its mistakes, sometimes both in the same minute.Their goals were clinical and rhythmic. Their first equalizer came in one fluid sequence: Luka Vuskovic won the ball back in midfield, drove it forward, and slid it to Petar Sucic, who skipped past John Stones and rolled it into Martin Baturina’s stride for the finish. The second was just as clean — Mario Pasalic’s ball over the top found Ivan Perisic, whose header dropped square for Petar Musa to put home.At its best, Croatia’s play was a masterclass in efficiency.Their lapses were efficient too, and they usually ended in goals. It started with Modric, who fouled Noni Madueke trying to clear a corner and gave away the game’s first penalty. Dominik Livakovic saved the initial strike, but he’d already strayed off his line; Harry Kane said he’d scouted Livakovic’s tendency to move early, and used a stutter step to draw him out. On the retake, Kane buried it.Kane’s second was a free header off another Declan Rice corner. The Croatians had the size to defend him, but didn’t bother marking him at all; far too easy a goal to hand a player coming off 61 goals in 51 games for Bayern Munich. This version of Kane doesn’t need a shove or a lucky bounce, just an inch. Croatia gave him yards.Croatia afforded Harry Kane far too much space (Katelyn Mulcahy/Getty Images for Rexona)Two minutes into the second half, Bellingham ran onto a ball over the top and finished low to make it 3-2. The next 10 minutes were, Zlatko Dalic told reporters afterward, “really quite bad”, with Croatia pinned in their own half with no momentum to speak of. Somewhere in the middle of it, Modric was hauled off, his role in the opening goal the defining image of his night. Rashford added a fourth before the final whistle.Dalic’s focus returned to the preparation gone astray. “We were at our worst exactly where we knew the greatest danger lay,” he said to journalists. England’s successful attacks came off corners or deep balls down the right side “We reacted poorly to the deep ball and rotated poorly,” Dalic added.Josko Gvardiol cited a “drop in concentration” for Bellingham’s goal.“They’re very dangerous, and we knew small mistakes would cost us,” the Manchester City defender told reporters. “That’s exactly what happened today. We had a couple of chances ourselves, and of course, so did they, but we simply weren’t at the level needed against a team like that.”Baturina, who scored the best goal of the night and still ended up on the losing side, put it more simply: “Maybe we were a bit short on luck, but against a team like this, every mistake is fatal.”Panama and Ghana are still to come, and those two might offer a soft landing: neither impressed in a 1-0 Ghana win later Wednesday.“Quite simply, after this defeat we don’t have much room left for error, we don’t have much room for another bad match or mistakes like these,” Dalic said. “I wouldn’t say it was a bad match on our part overall, but there were a lot of mistakes that a quality opponent punished us for.”You wonder what it would look like if they ever did earn some room for mistakes — if this Croatia team would ever seize the tournament by the throat from the first match, what would its ceiling look like?Croatia has recovered from longer odds before; the run to the 2018 final came after extra-time scares in three straight knockout rounds. Panama and Ghana are not England.But the pattern holds: Croatia, the country that punches above its weight, once again must throw those punches from the back foot.