FIFA World Cup 2022: Croatia's Livakovic stops Japan's march with superlative sa

Goalkeeper Dominik Livakovic was the hero saving three penalties in the shootout as Croatia edged past Japan after a 11 draw to reach the FIFA World Cup quarterfinals at Janoub stadiumThe Russia 2018 runnersup held their nerve and won the penalty shootout 31 as Livakovic kept out the first two efforts before stopping Maya Yoshidas kick then Mario Pasalic converted the vital effort to take his side throughAt the end of fulltime play the teams were locked oneall and the 30 minutes of extra time also failed to break the deadlockCroatia will take on the winners of Mondays late match between Brazil and South Korea in the quarterfinalsOn Tuesday the last round matches of the last16 stage will take place between Morocco and Spain followed by Portugal and SwitzerlandAlso readFIFA World Cup 2022 HeeChans stoppage time goal helps South Korea stun Portugal qualify for last16The Samurai Blue started badly in the penalty shootout with Takumi Minamino and Kaoru Mitoma unable to beat Livakovic while Marko Livajas effort hit the post it did not make much of a difference as Livakovic proved outstanding in the Croatian goalEarlier Croatia came back from a goal down to draw level through Ivan Perisic The 33yearolds 55thminute equaliser was his sixth goal at the World Cup and the first one in Qatar taking his individual tally of international goals to tenThe Tottenham Hotspur striker currently playing in his third World Cup is now tied with Davor Suker as the top goalscorer at the World Cup which he scored in the 1998 and 2002 World CupsJapan proved beyond any reasonable doubt that they are capable of giving any side a strong game and looked dangerous on the breakThe Europeans have had more possession and an equal amount of shots on target as the Japanese in the first halfJapan were the livelier side and took a deserved lead two minutes before halftime when Celtic forward Daizen Maeda wherein a whipped cross bounced around in the box and fell to Maeda who got to the end of the cross to give Japan the muchdeserved leadTen minutes after the resumption Croatia equalized when Perisic unleashed a brilliant powerful header off Dejan Lovrens cross into the bottom corner with incredible precisionThough the official match attendance stood at 42523 in the nearly 45000capacity arena there were some empty seats in some of the upper tiers of the venue but the noise made by both teams made it feel like the arena was packed to the brimThereafter neither side could find a breakthrough and the game ticked into the additional 30 minutes of extra time with Brighton midfielder Mitomas spectacular strike pushed over by LivakovicAt the other end Marko Livajas flicked header looked to be looping in but Shuichi Gonda managed to gather and Lovro Majer dragged a shot in the 120th minuteThe contest went to nerveshredding penalties where Livakovic emerged as the man to lead Croatias celebrationsThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever