NHA HANG TAI SUI RESTAURANT, ROSEMEAND, CA -- 2A-Russia, the worst-ranked team (70th) in the tournament, opened people's eyes with a 5-0 win to start the tournament. Now the host used a highly efficient defense to shut out the #10 team in the world for 120 minutes to prevail in the penalty shootout, 4-3 (1-1 tie). 1B-Spain's only goal came off an own goal in the 12' and despite playing a highly efficient possession game (completing 91% of their passes (1,031 passes completed vs RUS's 204), having 74% possession time, and having 60 minutes of playing time (vs RUS's 20)), ESP was almost too patient and couldn't score in 120 minutes. RUS's only shot on goal was their penalty kick goal in the 41'.
In the penalty shootout, RUS was a
perfect 4-for-4 and when ESP's fifth attempt by Iago Aspas's attempt was marvelously kick-saved by Igor Akinfeev, Moscow erupted with the hosts advancing to the Quarterfinals. ESP, who had distractions in firing their coach right before the Cup, subbed out opening match goal scorers Nacho and Diego Costa but their four subs (for first time in WC, fourth sub allowed in Extra Time) did produce 9 of their 25 shots.
Extra time and the PSO also were featured in the 1D-Croatia vs 2C-Denmark match. After a frantic start where both teams scored in the first four minutes, the next 116 minutes remained scoreless. However, unlike the ESP-RUS match were ESP were content to possess and RUS was content to delay to PSO, both CRO and DEN had attacking options, especially in the last 15 minutes of extra time. Here, CRO's Ante Rebic was on a breakaway in the 115' and was taken down after getting around the GK and was awarded a PK. Why the DEN defender only got a yellow card and not a red is bizarre and why Rebic went for the theatrics of falling instead of simply getting up and kicking the ball next to him into the open net was just a missed opportunity. CRO's PK was saved (the first of what would be 6 PK saves in the match) and we went to PSO.
Here, kickers were mostly kicking the ball low to middle of the goal which meant every kick was savable and five of the ten kicks were. Rounds 1 and 4 saw each GK make a save but in the fifth round, CRO's Danijel Subasic came up with his third save (tying a WC record) and CRO's Ivan Rakitic put one past the GK to send CRO into the quarterfinals.
While RUS outfouled ESP 19-5 and prevailed, DEN outfouled CRO 19-5 and fell. The pair of UEFA matchups meant four ties as UEFA moved to 22-12-14 for the tournament.
Just five picked RUS and only Roban2 (49th-Tied, 66) and GermanyFTW (24th-T, 72) picked CRO. Kds911 remains in first with 83 points. The Mighty Mobelfakta moved into 2nd with 81 points as the top 2 still have a champion (Brazil). With Spain out, 7 lost their champion and 34 lost their semifinalist. Brazil (23), Belgium (7), and France (4) are the top teams still alive.
Quarterfinalists (W-L-T Pts - (GD - GF))
URU 4-0-0 12 (6 - 7)
CRO 3-0-1 10 (6 - 8)
FRA 3-0-1 10 (3 - 7)
RUS 2-1-1 7 (4 - 9)
Eliminated (W-L-T Pts - (GD - GF))
ESP 1-0-3 6 (1 - 7)
DEN 1-0-3 6 (1 - 1)
POR 1-1-2 5 (0 - 6)
ARG 1-2-1 4 (-3 - 6)
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