Croatia stun Brazil in penalty shootout to reach FIFA World Cup semis

DOHA (Qatar): Neymar drew level with football legend Pele's record of 77 Brazil goals with his effort against Croatia on Friday but that was not enough for the South Americans to take them to the next stage of the FIFA World Cup.

Instead, Neymar's team crashed out of the football showpiece event after going down 4-2 to 2018 runners-up Croatia in the penalty shootout.

At the Education City Stadium on Friday the teams were locked goalless at the end of the normal period of play and both teams found the back of the nets in the 30 minutes of extra time. Brazil scored first with Neymar scoring a gem of a goal in the 105th minute only to find Croatia fighting it back to draw level in the 117th minute through Bruno Petkovic and take the 120 minutes to clash into a penalty shootout.

Dominik Livakovic in goal for Croatia was once again brilliant. He will likely be a contender for the best goalkeeper of the World Cup award.

In the penalty shootout, Croatia keeper Livakovic, who had done a splendid job in the normal period of play and extra-time, pulled off brilliant saves to give the Croatians their second successive win in the tie-break, having earlier similarly defeated Asian giants Japan the last-16 clash.

Rodrygo and Marquinhos missed from the spot from Brazil, while Nikola Vlasic, Lovro Majer, Luka Modric and Mislav Orsic converted all four penalties taken by Croatia.

The Croatian keeper Livakovic made 11 saves, out of which seven were shots taken from inside the box, made one save in the penalty shootout and that is not all, he touched the ball 51 times and out of the 32 passes he made, 26 were accurate and was rightfully declared as the player of the match. (IANS)

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