Dominik Livakovic, the World Cup's newest hero! Winners and losers as Croatia end Japan's miracle run with penalty shootout win

Definitely not a household name outside of Croatia, but Livakovic is a World Cup hero now.

After making a few big stops throughout the 120 minutes, he emerged as Croatia's penalty shootout star. He stopped each of the first two spot-kicks, which were both fairly poor to be fair, getting hands to shots from both Takumi Minamino and Kaoru Mitoma.

The tone was set from there, and though Marko Livaja missed a penalty of his own for Croatia, Livakovic made it three saves from four when he denied Maya Yoshida to set up Mario Pasalic to seal the deal.

Dinamo Zagreb shot-stopper Livakovic was part of the Croatia squad back in 2018 as a backup. Now the starter, he's a key reason that they're still alive this time around.

It's a cruel way to define a football match, really. Penalties often come down to a bit of luck, a bounce here or a bounce there. There was no luck here, though. This was just poor.

Japan's penalties simply weren't good enough to send them through. Yoshida, Mitoma and Minamino failed from the spot, and there's little more that you can say.

What an opportunity it was, too. With Croatia's heavy-hitters, their experienced veterans, off the field, Japan must have liked their chances. But, from the moment Minamino missed with a weak effort, the life was sucked out of his team as they moved toward their inevitable exit.

Another big game, another big goal for Perisic, Croatia's most clutch player.

He's a history-maker, too. His second-half finish was the 10th major tournament goal of his career, giving him more than the legendary Davor Suker. He also has now been directly involved in 10 goals in 14 World Cup matches, with only Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe being involved in more since the 2014 competition.

His goal here was lovely, a perfect header from seemingly nowhere. Except it's never from nowhere when Perisic is wearing the red and white because, when he's on the field, a goal is always on its way.

You know what you're going to get from Croatia's midfield, perhaps the best at this tournament. Their defence has also looked pretty solid, with Dejan Lovren and Josko Gvardiol forming a formidable partnership ahead of Livakovic.

But the strikers, they're a concern, aren't they?

Croatia have gotten little out of their attackers, save for a Canada game where the opponents came out playing suicidal football with a two-man midfield. Croatia scored four in that game but just one in the other three combined. That will be nowhere near enough.

Bruno Petkovic did nothing having been handed the start here before being replaced in the 62nd minute for Ante Budimir, who was subsequently benched for the penalty shootout. And then Marko Livaja, his replacement, was the only Croatian to miss from the penalty spot.

A whole lot of not great. Croatia will need a lot more than that if they are to last through the weekend.

Croatia's experience got them through this game. It may be what holds them back going forward.

There are some old legs in this Croatia squad, and those legs did a lot of running on Monday.

Modric, 37, gave Croatia 99 good minutes while 30-year-old Brozovic played the full 120. Perisic, the goalscorer at age 33, logged 106 minutes.

You could argue that those are Croatia's three most important players, and all are in the back half of their career. Games like this take a lot out of you, especially in the Qatari heat, even if it wasn't a particularly warm night.

Whoever emerges from the other quarter-final in this section of the draw will be licking their chops. Croatia had the wisdom to win out on Monday, but will they have the legs to compete on Friday?