Four Croatians calmly stepped up and converted their penalties. Two Brazilians – Rodrygo, who went first, and Marquinhos, who went last – did not.
And just like that, Brazil, who had one foot in the semi-finals less than 30 minutes earlier, were out.
They could hardly believe it. Marquinhos dropped to his knees just in front of the penalty spot and then rested his forehead on the grass. Neymar, who never got to take his attempt in the shoot-out, held his hands over his face at midfield, then rose and bit his collar, his face a disbelieving stare. Thiago Silva came over and gave him a kiss on the check. Daniel Alves arrived with a hug. A tear rolled down Neymar’s cheek.
On the far side of the field, Croatia’s delirious sprints in every direction coalesced around goalkeeper Dominik Livakovic, who had saved Rodrygo’s penalty and forced Marquinhos to try to cut his razor close.
Croatia, the team who will not be beaten, will face Argentina in the semi-finals next week. Block out some extra time for it if you plan to watch. NYT
AL RAYYAN – For 45 minutes, then 90, and then 15 more, Brazil tried all the tools in their considerable arsenal – the toe pokes and the back heels, the sweetly bending curlers and the outside-of-the-foot slices. As their frustration mounted, it pivoted to some of football’s darker arts – dives and flops, shirt pulls and shoves, and appeals to the referee for justice.
None of it worked. Croatia had brought a vise to a gunfight, and for more than two long hours on Friday they calmly and methodically squeezed the life and the joy out of Brazil. Croatia, opponents should know by now, do not exit the World Cup without a fight.
The Brazilians got a late goal. The Croatians answered with an even later one. The game went to a penalty shoot-out. And only then, with eight quick kicks breaking a tie after 120 minutes could not, was it over.
Croatia were heading to the semi-finals. Brazil were going home. Again.
“For me, Brazil is football, and football is Brazil,” Croatia defender Borna Sosa said. “To beat Brazil, it’s maybe the best feeling ever.”
Brazil had arrived in Qatar with the same goal at every World Cup – to win it. A five-time champion, Brazil had maneuvered through their first three games on cruise control. Their advancement had never been in doubt after winning their first match with their star, Neymar, in the line-up and splitting the next two while he sat out nursing an ankle injury.
Their usual swagger had returned on Monday, with a 4-1 victory over South Korea that featured sublime passing, dancing goal celebrations and a reset of the nation’s annual expectations at sky high.
When it all started to go right on Friday, when Neymar’s goal gave Brazil the lead in extra time, the players and the nation breathed a sigh of relief. But just as suddenly, it all went wrong – a Croatian equaliser, a loss on penalty kicks, a quarter-final exit instead of a date with Argentina in the semi-finals on Tuesday.
“What went wrong is that it’s football,” Brazil goalkeeper Alisson said. “Anything can happen.”
Many fans and some journalists immediately blamed Brazil’s coach Tite for the defeat. After the game, he headed off calls to quit by saying he had already decided to leave his post.
Croatia had clawed their way to the final of the last edition, in Russia in 2018, by surviving three games that went to extra time, and they had already prevailed in one shoot-out in Qatar, against Japan on Monday.
The path in Qatar had been steady but not straight. Croatia had seemed to run out of rope at the end of the first extra-time period, when Neymar completed a lightning-speed give-and-go to score, giving Brazil a deserved, if delayed, lead.
But Croatia had a response for that as well – a counter-attack in the 117th minute, a pass out of nowhere and into the middle, a hard shot by Bruno Petkovic deflected in to tie the score. It was only then that the teams’ World Cup quarter-final, scoreless after two halves and no longer so after two periods of extra time, arrived at the place where so many of Croatia’s games wind up now – in a penalty shoot-out.
And by then even the Brazilians probably could sense the end that was coming.
