Croatia Curtails Russia's Overachieving World Cup Run

Being real, just having the host team get this far should've been too much to ask.

And yet, Russia damn near made it even farther.

FIFA did its bit by conveniently plopping them into the Group of Less, and once the Sbornaya made the bracket, all chips were justifably put on their veteran 'keeper.

Igor Akinfeev dutifully shocked Spain, but the question was how long he could continue to post performances like that at the World Cup level.

 

Nevertheless, dudes were entertaining on their way out.

Croatia were pushed to the limit and then some before prevailing on penalties, 4-3, after a 2-2 deadlock took it to that point.

Given Russia's blockade-themed approach to matches in this tourney, fans in Sochi's Fisht Olympic Stadium and viewers everywhere were likely surprised to see the hosts get a little frisky.

After a start where both teams probed each other in searches for space, Russia found an opening in the the 31st minute.

Maybe it showed up halfway to Georgia, but Denis Cheryshev didn't hesitate. The Villareal midfielder fired a heatseeker that wound up being one of this tournament's top goals:

Duly sobered, the Croatian response came only eight minutes later with a perfect cross from Mario Mandžukić to Andrej Kramarić's header:

As expected, Croatia carried the play for most of the match, always threatening Akinfeev but not putting shots on target.

In once instance, though, the Russian 'keeper got an assist from Mr Woodwork:

 

Dude's probably thinking he should've gotten two for that because posts are harder to hit.

The best chances through the rest of regulation were Russian, via the always dangerous Cheryshev and Artem Dzyuba but they were easily handled.

And so it went. Nothing really creative or daring until a funky bitta chaos popped up in extra time.

It came during a corner in the 100th minute. After the usual jockeying for position, Domagoj Vida headed a nifty corner by Luka Modrić to break the deadlock:

 

If this was baseball, that'd be called a change-up. It was sneaky enough to put tears of pride in the eyes of a hacker.

It also looked like game, set, and match to the Vatreni.

 

The Russians rightly went into total desperation mode against Croatia, who managed to defend themselves for about 15 minutes.

That's when Mário Fernandes -- dual nationality, in case you're wondering -- made it 2-2 after rising higher than every Croatian to score the equalizer and take the game to a penalty shootout:

How in the name of Marx and Lenin do the Russians get two unmarked players on the ball like that?

OK. Now it makes sense.

As for the shootouts, both keepers saved one penalty each.

• Danijel Subašić stopped the first Russian penalty, while
• Akinfeev saved Croatia's second.

Mario Fernandes then went from hero to goat-in-waiting as he missed the third, which went wide from the post.

Did anyone bother to remind those shooters that a trip to the semi-finals was on the line here? It looked like they were merely lining up putts.

 

The clincher, by the way, was from Ivan Rakitić. The FC Barcelona star put Croatia in the Final Four.

So, this is how the home boys went out. They'll still be hailed as heroes when the dust has settled.

As to Croatia, they've got some catching up to do in case their match with England goes that far. The Three Lions actually practice penalty shootouts.