CROATIA SECOND TO WIN SUCCESSIVE SHOOTOUTS

Croatia are just the second team to win successive shootouts in World Cup history, emulating Argentina’s feat in 1990, when the latter won shootouts against Yugoslavia and Italy in the quarterfinal and the semifinal, respectively.

Croatia are also just the second team to advance through two back-to-back World Cup knockout games after trailing. Italy was the last team to do so, with comeback wins against Mexico and West Germany in the 1970 quarter final and the semifinal respectively. Croatia had come back from 0-1 down against Denmark in the Round of 16, before advancing on penalties.

Danijel Subasic’s save on Fedor Smolov’s penalty made him only the third goalkeeper in history to save four penalties in World Cup shootouts. He had saved three against Denmark in the Round of 16 shootout. Sergio Goycochea (Argentina) and Harald Schumacher (Germany) are the other two keepers in that list.

This was the first time since 1994 that a team tied a match after going behind in extra-time. Sweden did the same against Romania in the 1994 quarterfinal, where Kennet Andersson also equalised in the 115th minute, before going on to win on penalties. Mario Fernandes’ goal in the 115th minute is the latest by a Russian in a World Cup game, eclipsing Igor Belanov, who scored in the 111th minute of the 3-4 defeat against Belgium in the 1986 final.

Croatia scored their 10th goal at the 2018 World Cup, their second-best yield for a single tournament, one less than what their thirdplaced 1998 team managed on debut in France. They’ve had eight different scorers already in this tournament, which is their best ever tally.

This is the first time in 16 years that two teams took a quarterfinal to extra time, after having played extra time in the Round of 16 as well. Both Russia and Croatia had needed extratime in their matches against Spain and Denmark, respectively, and thus emulated South Korea and Spain, who needed extra time and penalties to separate each other in the last eight of 2002. This is the first time two teams have had penalties in successive matches of the knockout stages of a World Cup, though.

Russia are the first host nation to have been eliminated at the quarterfinals stage of a World Cup in 32 years. Mexico lost the penalty shootout in 1986 against West Germany, and since then Italy (1990), France (1998), South Korea (2002), Germany (2006) and Brazil (2014) have all made the semifinals. Only United States (1994), co-hosts Japan (2002) and South Africa (2010) failed to qualify for the quarters as hosts.