Croatia coach Zlatko Dalic was quite a relieved man, but stressed that he was confident his goalkeeper Dominik Livakovic would be their savior if the game went to penalties. That’s exactly what the 27-year-old Dinamo Zagreb goalkeeper did, as he was outstanding making three saves against Japan in the penalty shootout to secure Croatia a spot in the World Cup quarter-finals. Dominik’s efforts, which earned him the ‘Man of the Match’, sealed for Croatia a 3-1 win on penalties after full time and extra time was tied at 1-all, on at the Al Janoub Stadium on Monday night.
“Penalties are a lottery but today we had the fantastic Dominic Livaković, who defended the goal with confidence and was unbeatable. He stopped every penalty kick cleanly with his quality. In the end, I can only congratulate all the players from winning the match,” Dalic said in the post match press conference.
Dalic’s counterpart, Hajime Moriyasu, Head Coach of Japan also praised the Croatian goalkeeper. “In regard to tonight’s shootout, their goalkeeper performed amazingly well, so much so that our penalties were saved. However, they had more power behind their shots so they won the penalty shootout, which we will have to work on for high-level football. We will focus on this for future games.”
Moriyasu also pointed out that penalties require an element of luck. “I believe it boils down to luck. I’m sure people will also agree if the answer boils down to training. I have seen and experienced many things over the years, but when it comes to striking the ball with power and scoring, I feel there is still a gap between Japan and Europe, and other global powerhouses.”
I was assured that we would win in the shootout since we had practiced the drills in anticipation of facing such a situation. “We had practiced penalties in training yesterday and Dominik made several saves. When he had the penalty shootout today I was assured, yesterday he installed this confidence and I was sure he would show that capacity today,” Dalic stated.
Meanwhile, Dominik became the third goalkeeper to make three saves in a single World Cup penalty shootout after Portugal’s Ricardo Pereira in 2006 versus England and Croatia’s Danijel Subasic versus Denmark in 2018.
Ricardo had saved from Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher in a 3-1 shootout win after a 0–0 draw over extra time, becoming the first goalkeeper to save three times in a World Cup shootout.
Subasic had made three saves to deny Christian Eriksen, Lasse Schone and Nicolai Jorgensen in the penalty shootout to send Croatia into the World Cup quarter-finals.
Dominik, who so far has 38 caps, made his international debut against Chile in the 2017 China Cup, but Croatia lost on penalties. The 1.87 goalkeeper was named in Croatia’s preliminary 32 man squad for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, and was eventually part of the team that finished runners-up after losing the final 4-2 against France.
“As you can see, we in Croatia, even four years ago, defended penalties very well. The only thing I can say is thankfully I managed to continue what (Danijel) Subasic started. I think it more comes down to a feeling, as well as the analysis of all the players that are taking the penalties, that is it.”
On winning the World Cup on penalty shootouts?, he responded “As long as we win it, it doesn’t matter how we get there. Of course it is always easier to resolve the game sooner, rather than having a penalty shootout, due to the uncertainty they bring. We gave our best out there, we tried to finish the game earlier. We were constantly attacking, it did not work out. So we ended up at the penalty shootout and eventually it all ended well for Croatia.
Dominik felt that the Japanese could have done better with their penalties. “The quality was okay. But the penalties were not that hard to stop. The shots were pretty firm and good. As I said, I analyse it even before the game, and then simply trust my feeling. They were not perfectly executed penalties, but they were pretty powerful shots, apart from maybe the first one. But thankfully it ended well for me,” said the Croat, who now has big task on hand as he will have to produced another splendid performance against the mighty Brazilians on Friday and take his team closer to the final.