There were two round of 16 games on Sunday( 7/1) , as the hometown team Russia was able to upset World Cup favorites Spain , while Croatia was able to survive Denmark and move on to the Quater finals.
Spain vs Russia : This game had an auspicious start to it as an own goal by Russia, was the first goal of this game . Sergie Ignashevich , got credit for the goal in the 12th minute to make it 1-0 Spain. However, an awkward penalty , against Spain , (in where the ball went off the Spain defender , off the Russians head ,and then hit the back of the Spain’s player arm), led to a goal in the 40th minute on a PK and we are tied at 1!!! For the rest of the game , it was back and forth as both teams had a lot of chances not couldn’t convert on them . This continued even after regulation, and into both overtime periods as well. After 120 minutes, with the score still tied at 1 , we were treated to a 5 round shootout! Most of the time in shootouts, there is this one goal , or one miss that can come back to bite you or reward you in the shootout, and in this case it was a miss by Spain in the 3rd round , as with the score tied at 2 in the top of the 3rd, the Spain shot was stopped by the Russian goalkeeper. This ended up coming back to haunt Spain as Russia would score in rounds 3 and 4, as well to beat Spain 4-3 in the shootout, ( who missed again in the top of the 5th round to end the match ). One again, another big domino falls at this years World Cup ! The host nation moves on !
CROATIA VS DENMARK: This game was great early , but after that , nothing happened until overtime and the shootout. Croatia would strike first 4 minutes in as Mario Mandusuk put Croatia on top , but only for Denmark to tie it in the 13th minute of the game , as Mathias Jorngensen leveled the match . Like I said , nothing really happened after that , so let’s just skip to late in double overtime. In the waning minutes, Croatia had a breakaway and after getting by the goalie he was tripped up by a Denmark defender, so a penalty shot occurred . However, the penalty shot was stopped and for the second time on Sunday , we were headed to a shootout! Once again, it was a miss that cost a team , as a miss by Denmark in the top of the 5th, gave Croatia a chance to Walk It off , and they did as Ivan Rakitick slipped one past the Denmark goalie to give Croatia a 3-2 win in the shootout and a date with Russia in the Quarterfinals. MONDAY’S MATCHES BRAZIL VS MEXICO BELGIUM vs JAPAN
Comentarios