Croatia The Savors Of European Football

This was to be a hotly fancied Brazil last dance in the World Cup, like many other challengers before them they fell to a Croatia side that feasts upon the pressure cooker of penalty shootouts like a hungover adolescent with a Mc Donalds.

There will be a postmortem within the Brazilian camp, but as Neymar drenched the pitch with tears the world rightly began to comprehend just what this Croatia side has achieved.

The tiny European country is a mammoth player on the global football stage, just how they do it is a mystery but how the wider footballing audiences continually ignore their exploits is even more mysterious.

Romantics and neutrals alike dream of the fairytale ending for Messi and Argentina but what about the magician that is Modric!? His legs have many miles, but they also still have the capacity to hypnotize even the most steadfast defensive sentinel.

The game was low on entertainment at times, but it had the unique tension you see when a hotly tipped international superpower comes up against a technically gifted upstart ready to spring an ambush.

Neymar was going through the motions akin to his PSG career and just when you began to query the wisdom in starting him, the bleached head attacker conjured a sublime piece of footballing brillance to burst the Croatian net deep in extra time.

The script seemed to be going to plan, the stands were alite with samba delight but instead of rolling over in dismay at their ambush of penalties evaporating Croatia sprung attacker after attacker from their bench.

The ball fell to big Bruno Petkovic and as if he was inspired by the age-old-adage 'great touch for a bigman' he showed composure and belief inside the box and equalised.

Livakovic an immutable truth in the Croatian goal again performed his penalty heroics and the samba dance came to an end much to the delight to a sour Roy Keane one might expect.

A good manager is a chemist; Zlatko Dalic is an alchemist at this World Cup, and should they face another side in the Russian roulette game of penalties again at this tournament you feel Croatia will not be denied such is the momentum of the unique microclimate they are building in Qatar.

With many of the European superpowers disappointing at this World Cup, Croatia has spared the blushes for the continent in many ways by reaching the semifinal of the tournament.

Liam Scahill