AL KHOR, Qatar (AP) — An­oth­er sur­pris­ing­ly strong per­for­mance by an Arab coun­try at the World Cup in Qatar sti­fled the threat of Lu­ka Mod­ric and held 2018 fi­nal­ist Croa­t­ia to a 0-0 draw.

Mo­roc­co’s re­silient per­for­mance Wednes­day came 24 hours af­ter Sau­di Ara­bia sparked the first World Cup in the Mid­dle East in­to life by beat­ing Li­onel Mes­si’s Ar­genti­na in one of the biggest up­sets in the tour­na­ment’s his­to­ry.

Tunisia fol­lowed that up with a score­less draw against Eu­ro­pean Cham­pi­onship semi­fi­nal­ist Den­mark.

Mo­roc­co man­aged to do enough to rein in Croa­t­ia cap­tain Mod­ric, who was still his team's best play­er in their Group F open­er and had one of the best chances when his shot just rose over the cross­bar in the first half. De­jan Lovran got a shot off at a cor­ner in the sec­ond half and So­fyan Am­ra­bat cleared off the line for Mo­roc­co to pre­serve the draw.

“It was a dif­fi­cult game, es­pe­cial­ly in the first 15 min­utes,” Mod­ric said. He said Croa­t­ia “missed some­thing up front.”

Mod­ric didn't have near­ly the same kind of im­pact he had through­out the last World Cup in Rus­sia when he led Croa­t­ia to its first fi­nal be­fore los­ing to France.

That was large­ly down to Mo­roc­co, who ha­rassed and har­ried the Croa­t­ians at every turn, buoyed by their red-shirt­ed fans, who out­num­bered and made much more noise than the Croa­t­ian sup­port­ers.

“They played their hearts out. I con­grat­u­late them on that,” said Croa­t­ia coach Zlatko Dal­ic. “They had a re­al­ly en­er­getic game and they had great sup­port.”

The 37-year-old Mod­ric is play­ing in his fourth and what’s ex­pect­ed to be his fi­nal World Cup, where he’s look­ing to add an in­ter­na­tion­al ti­tle to his tro­phy-laden ca­reer with Re­al Madrid.

He was vot­ed best play­er at the World Cup four years ago to wide ac­claim. When he was then an­nounced as play­er of the match on Wednes­day, it was greet­ed by an out­burst of boos from Mo­roc­co fans who had chant­ed and whirled scarves as they jumped up and down in the fi­nal min­utes at Al Bayt Sta­di­um.

Paris Saint-Ger­main de­fend­er Achraf Haki­mi had the best chance for Mo­roc­co with a thump­ing sec­ond-half shot punched away with both fists by goal­keep­er Do­minik Li­vakovic.

The re­sult was a ma­jor con­fi­dence-boost­er for Mo­roc­co and coach Walid Re­gragui, who was on­ly hired at the end of Au­gust — his first in­ter­na­tion­al coach­ing job — and had less than three months to pre­pare the team for Qatar.

“We were play­ing against the run­ners up for the last World Cup,” Re­gragui said. "I'm so proud of the boys. I'm proud of the men."

MORE THAN MOD­RIC

As bril­liant as he is, Mod­ric is clos­er to 40 than 30 now and will need more help from his team if Croa­t­ia is go­ing to get to an­oth­er World Cup fi­nal. For­wards Ivan Perisic and Niko­la Vla­sic weren’t the threats they were ex­pect­ed to be against Mo­roc­co and Vla­sic went off in­jured in the sec­ond half.

“We haven’t come here just to com­pete,” Mod­ric said. "On the ba­sis of our Russ­ian ex­pe­ri­ence we have am­bi­tions to do the same or even bet­ter. But even be­fore that tour­na­ment we said let’s first set a pri­ma­ry ob­jec­tive of get­ting past the group stage.”

ROOK­IE COACH

There were se­ri­ous con­cerns that Re­gragui’s lack of in­ter­na­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence and time to pre­pare the Mo­roc­co team would re­sult in an­oth­er ear­ly ex­it. Mo­roc­co has on­ly got past the group stage once at a World Cup, back in 1986. But Re­gragui’s team was well drilled, even if Chelsea’s Hakim Ziyech didn’t play as well as ex­pect­ed on the right wing.

WHAT’S NEXT

Mo­roc­co and Re­gragui have an­oth­er huge test in their next game against No. 2-ranked Bel­gium in a tough Group F. Croa­t­ia will ex­pect a win against Cana­da.