The hosts of this year’s World Cup took on Croatia in the quarterfinals of the competition, looking to progress into the Semi Finals for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Croatia have been concerning in terms of their tactics in the last two fixtures.
The Blazers have had an impressive tournament but have recently slowed down their momentum.
The last Croatia game went into Penalty shootouts and so did this fixture as the 120 minutes ended 2-2.
Russia delivered the first blow just after the half hour mark as Denis Cheryshev smashed in another Goal of the Tournament contender from 20-yards out.
The ball curled into the top left hand corner passed Danijel Subasic as the stadium erupted.
Croatia as usual weren’t going to back down from conceding as they equalised a few minutes later from a Andrej Kramaric header.
The team’s main frontman Mario Mandzukic crossed the ball in the box for Kramaric to nod it in six yards out.
The rest of the 90 remained pretty tense with good chances from the visitors.
Ivan Perisic could have made a breakthrough in the latter half as his shot clipped the post.
Croatia were given a big scare after it seemed that their star keeper Subasic had caught a calf injury.
He went down on the ground but managed to pull through in the whole game with pain.
During extra, the Croats made a breakthrough with another header as Domagoj Vida jumped high in what looked like the match winning goal.
It was the final set piece for Russia that kept the hosts in the game as one of the Reds’ players was fouled near the box.
Alan Dzagoev took the kick for Russia instead of Aleksandr Golovin and the shot connected with Mario Fernandes’ head, bringing the game level again.
A mistake by Fernandes during the penalty shootout cost Russia the game.
His shot went wide from the post while Croatia converted all but one shot.
The visitors went through to the Semifinals to face England.
Source of Image: @FIFAWorldCup (Twitter)
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