Neymar demonstrated the unity of the team when he took to social media to reveal his exchanges with his teammates after elimination to show the world that the group remained as one unit.
Croatia knocked one of the World Cup favourites, Brazil, out of the World Cup, which came as a surprise and disappointment to the fans.
The Croatian team, led by the evergreen Luka Modric, confirmed their advance to the first semifinal of the World Cup in Qatar. They progressed by beating 5-time world champions Brazil.
The biggest soccer nation could have won its sixth world cup, which even the Oxford Mathematical Model predicted, but things always turn out differently than expected, at least in this World Cup.
The defeat against Croatia
Most people missed a critical aspect of the dramatic semifinal game: while Brazil played some of its games with the second team, others in second gear, Croatia played every game on the edge, with more or less the same players in the field, eventually becoming the well-coordinated and unbeatable (so far) machine.
The preparations the teams went through before this tournament were brief as it was the middle of the season, and the players had to get to know each other (and get used to it) and practice automatisms along the way during the tournament since they hadn’t played together in months.
Croatia did this in a much better way, with rotations only happening in forward positions (goal scoring is their biggest problem so far, who knows how things would turn out if Petković were a regular starter?). On the other hand, Brazil casually used all the players in their squad, even the third goalkeeper, to be able to say that they played in the World Cup!
Brazil almost qualified when Neymar scored after extra time, but who expected Croatia to win again on penalties?
Neymar’s message
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“I decided to show these messages to show how much we wanted to win and how united we were.” Neymar wrote on social media.
“A penalty won’t change what I think of you,” Neymar wrote to his Brazil and PSG teammate Marquinhos, who missed the crucial penalty to give Croatia victory and a subsequent place in the final.
Marquinhos replied that this is the moment when we need to be strong. This is a shocking loss, but congratulations to Croatia who cemented their place in the semi-finals.
