World Cup 2018 Round of 16: Croatia and Russia won at Penalties' Lottery!!

Quarter Finals' save by Igor Akinfeev (Picture taken from TheWeek.co.uk)

Other two matches today after the big yesterday's surprises. As you know the World Cup lost the two biggest players on the planet. Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi but the show must go on and actually a bunch of amazing players are still in!
The first match was between Spain and the host Russia! Honestly it looked like a walk in the park for Spain. The reds got the lead at 13' with an own goal by Sergei Ignashevich even if it looked like a Serge Ramos goal since the Russian defender practically dragged him down and Serge managed to touch the ball towards the goal. Nice one and 1-0 (13')! Not really much happened for the whole first half even if the match wasn't boring at all. Surprisingly Russia found the equaliser at 40' thanks to a penalty kick. Incredibly ingenue was Pique who jumped in the middle of the box raising his hand like he was a goalkeeper touching the ball. The VAR called it and Artem Dzyuba scored it. 1-1 at the end of the first half. The second half was pretty stiff with Spain managing the ball possession and Russia only waiting to punish by counter-attack but both teams just couldn't make it through and only towards the end Iniesta kept the keeper busy with a long distance shot but for the rest it was mostly corner kicks and cross in the area cleared by the Russians. 1-1 and this was the first match to go to the extra-time!! Extra-time that saw a great save by Akinfeev at 109' over a close range shot by Rodrigo. 1-1 and penalties. INCREDIBLY RUSSIA MADE IT !!!! De Gea never even got close to save one. Another overrated player? We will discover the upcoming season. Mistakes by Koke and Aspas. Spain is out! Nice saves by Akinfeev who brought his team to the Quarter Finals!

The other match was Croatia-Denmark and you actually wouldn't believe that after 2 minutes Denmark was already up by one thanks to Mathias Jorgensen who solved a tangled situation in the penalty box. Croatian defenders could have done much better. Even more incredible was the equaliser at 4' by Mario Mandzukic. Team should have told to their defenders to focus much more. 1-1 after only 4 minutes! A bit of quietness for a while after those fireworks with Croatia keeping the ball possession but getting towards the end of the first half Denmark actually had couple of decent chances: one missed by Cornelius who couldn't control the ball in the box and one with Eriksen who shot over the bar but he could have tried the luck much before. At 45' a chance for Rakitic too but his shot from 16 yards was save by Schmeichel. 1-1 in the first half ! In the second half the fear of getting kicked out grew up indeed the first real chance happened only at 74' with the substitute Nicolai Jorgensen who shot on Subasic. At 78' good space for a wide range shot by Modric but this time no luck and the ball went far away from the goal. A lot of intensity and contacts on the pitch and not much more of a Perisic header out and few Schmeichel 's intereventions. 1-1 and even here it was Extra-time! Denmark seemed to have more fuel in their engines and started to press Croatia in their area (95') with dangerous corner kicks. Modric had the match ball at 115'. Penalty kick given after Rebic was brought down while he was completely on goal. The Croatian superstar missed the penalty saved by Schmeichel. Even this match went on the Penalties' lottery! Badelj and Eriksen missed the first one! Thrilling penalties since both teams  missed their fourth with Schone and Privaric. Nicolai Jorgensen missed the last one which was scored by Rakitic instead! Croatia goes to Quarter Finals !!