Russia v Croatia, 07 July 2018

Kick-off: 9.00pm local Croatia won 4-3 on penalties After extra time - 1-1 at 90 minutes Russia v Croatia was Match 59 of the FIFA World Cup 2018 Refereeing team: Referee: Sandro Ricci (Brazil) Assistant Referee 1: Emerson de Carvalho (Brazil) Assistant Referee 2: Marcello Van Gasse (Brazil) VAR: Massimiliano Irrati (Italy) Croatia had now reached the World Cup semi-finals for a second time. Their only previous quarter-final was a 3-0 win against Germany in 1998. In their home tournament, Russia had reached the quarter-final of the World Cup for the first time since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Croatia had twice previously faced the host nation at the World Cup finals, losing against France in 1998 (1-2 in semi-final) and Brazil in 2014 (1-3 in the group stage). Croatia became the second nation to progress on a penalty shoot-outs in consecutive knock-out games in a World Cup finals after Argentina against Yugoslavia and Italy in 1990. Domagoj Vida became the eighth player to score for Croatia at Russia 2018; only Belgium (nine) now had more different goalscorers at this World Cup finals (excluding own goals). At 38 years and 358 days, Sergei Ignashevich became the fourth oldest player to appear in a quarter-final, semi-final or final of the World Cup after Peter Shilton (40 years and 292 days), Dino Zoff (40 years and 133 days) and Stanley Matthews (39 years and 145 days).