Croatia reached the quarter-finals of the World Cup on Monday with a dramatic 3-1 penalty shoot-out win over Japan after a tense last-16 conflict ended 1-1. Mario Pasalic struck the profitable penalty to ship Croatia via after Ivan Perisic had pulled Croatia degree within the fifty fifth minute of regular time following Daizen Maeda’s opener for Japan simply earlier than the break. Croatia now face both Brazil or South Korea within the final eight and continued midfield icon Luka Modric’s keep at his fourth and sure last World Cup.

Japan’s bid to achieve the final eight for the primary time of their historical past got here to a crushing finish after one other show of the type which noticed off Spain and Germany on their solution to topping Group E.

However they might not declare yet another huge European scalp within the form of the 2018 finalists and go residence within the second spherical, as they did 4 years in the past, after having three of their penalties saved.

Japan may simply have been forward inside three minutes when Shogo Taniguchi glanced a header broad from point-blank vary, and 10 minutes later Daizen Maeda got here near delivering Junya Ito’s brilliantly positioned low ball from the best flank.

In the meantime Perisic had let off a shot from a decent angle which led to a goalmouth scramble, however had Croatia scored they risked the objective being dominated out for what appeared like a transparent push on Takehiro Tomiyasu.

Bruno Petkovic then wasted an awesome alternative within the twenty fifth minute, strolling via virtually unopposed onto an extended via ball solely to dawdle and fail to get a go off to Andrej Kramaric who was charging into the field.

Kramaric was then too gradual to latch on to Perisic’s harmful flick-on and from there Japan took management, and the lead.

Daichi Kamada had already blasted over after an excellent passing transfer when within the forty third minute Maeda fired within the opener after Ritsu Doan’s cross was knocked down by Maya Yoshida.

Japan appeared the higher crew and able to inflict extra harm however out of the blue Croatia’s most harmful participant Perisic levelled the scores with a bullet header from Dejan Lovren’s deep cross.

Almost instantly afterwards Wataru Endo responded by having strike tipped over the bar by Dominik Livakovic, earlier than Shuichi Gonda pulled off the save of the match to maintain out Modric’s beautifully-struck, dripping shot.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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