Croatia knocks favourites Brazil out of the World Cup
Croatia knocked favourites Brazil out of the World Cup 2022 on penalty knockouts in the first quarterfinal on Friday.
Another unexpected result came at the Football World Cup 2022 where tournament favourites, Brazil, failed in the penalty shoot-out against Croatia after a fierce contest and exited the event.
Croatia beat former champions Brazil 2-4 in a penalty shootout to reach the semi-finals of the World Cup for the second time in a row.
In the match played at the Education City Stadium, both the teams showed poor performance and neither team could score a goal till the allotted time.
Brazil’s star player Neymar scored in extra time to give Brazil hope of reaching the semi-finals, but Croatia took revenge.
With Neymar scoring for the team in the 105th minute, it seemed that the Brazilian team would defend it strongly and easily make it to the semi-finals.
The Brazilian team looked dominant throughout the match and created several chances to score but could not succeed.
Neymar scored his 78th international goal and also broke Pele’s record for most goals scored by Brazil.
Pele, the legendary player of Brazil, made this record by scoring 77 goals.
When the Croatian team came back after half time of extra time, they looked fresh and scored in the 116th minute of the game 4 minutes before the end of extra time to level the match once again.
Bruno Petkovic scored for Croatia and proved to be the hero.
The first quarter-final of the World Cup was also tied in extra time, which was decided on penalty kicks.
Brazil’s Rodrigo missed the first kick but Croatian goalkeeper Dominik Levakovic skillfully denied Brazil.
On behalf of Croatia, captain Luka Modric, along with other players Nikola Vlasic, Loro Majer and Meslio Orsic made no mistakes and the team’s victory was ensured and all four players scored on penalty kicks.
Croatia beat Brazil 2-4 in a penalty shootout to reach the semi-finals of the World Cup for the second time in a row.
In the World Cup 2018, Croatia defeated hosts Russia in the quarter-finals on penalty shoot-out to reach the semi-finals where they faced England.
Croatia defeated England in the semi-finals of the last World Cup, but in the final, France easily defeated them 2-4.
On the other hand, the Brazilian team was eliminated from the event after losing 1-2 to Belgium in the quarterfinals of the last World Cup and this is the fourth time in a row that Brazil has been eliminated from the quarterfinals in the last 5 World Cup competitions.
Brazil won the World Cup in 2002, making it the fifth most-time champion.
