Argentina vs Croatia Semi Final Highlights: Argentina beat Croatia 3-0 to enter the final

SUBS: Franco Armani, Geronimo Rulli, Lisandro Martinez, Angel Correa, Exequiel Palacios, Paulo Dybala, Juan Foyth, Thiago Almada, Guido Rodriguez, Angel Di Maria, German Pezzella, Lautaro Martinez. | Coach: Lionel Scaloni (ARG)

SUBS: Ivo Grbic, Ivica Ivusic, Martin Erlic, Mislav Orsic, Nikola Vlasic, Ante Budimir, Kristijan Jakic, Josip Sutalo, Josip Stanisic, Bruno Petkovic, Domagoj Vida, Borna Barisic, Lovro Majer, Marko Livaja, Luka Sucic. | Coach: Zlatko Dalic (CRO)

Argentina made two changes in the starting eleven that won on penalties against the Netherlands for Tuesday's World Cup semi-final against Croatia, who named an unchanged line-up. Nicolas Tagliafico will start as left full-back in place of suspended Marcos Acuna while Leandro Paredes comes into midfield with defender Lisandro Martinez on the bench. Croatia will start with the same team that beat Brazil, also on penalties, in the quarter-finals. Argentina captain Lionel Messi is playing in his 25th World Cup match to level with German great Lothar Matthaeus as the joint record holder for most appearances in the tournament.

With Messi in a deeper role, Argentina find themselves in the unusual position of not having an established world-class forward and that is also the case for Croatia. Dalic started the semi-final against Brazil with Andrej Kramaric at centre-forward before Bruno Petkovic replaced him and went on to score the crucial equaliser. Against the Dutch, Argentina started Manchester City's Julian Alvarez as their main striker with Inter Milan's Lautaro Martinez coming on for him and causing plenty of trouble in extra-time. It will be interesting to see if either of those subs are given a start in the semi-final or whether they will again be asked to make an impact from the bench.

If there is one area in which Argentina can count on a clear advantage it is in the stands, where more than 40,000 Argentine supporters vocally backed their team at the Lusail Stadium against the Dutch. The atmosphere was such that the last-eight clash was turned into a de facto home game for Argentina, with only a smattering of fans in orange in the stadium, which has a capacity of nearly 89,000. It will almost certainly be the same story, at the same stadium, on Wednesday, with Croatia's much smaller group of followers drowned out by the songs and chants of the Argentine faithful. Will that impact the game? Almost certainly. Plenty of studies have shown that playing in front of a supportive crowd does impact performance in a positive way.