For 45 minutes, then 90, and then 15 more, Brazil tried all the tools in its considerable arsenal: the toe pokes and the back heels, the sweetly bending curlers and the outside-of-the-foot slices. As its frustration mounted, it pivoted to some of soccer’s darker arts: dives and flops, shirt pulls and appeals to the referee for justice.
None of it worked. Croatia had brought a vise to a gunfight, and for more than two long hours Friday it calmly and methodically squeezed the life and the joy out of Brazil. The Brazilians got a late goal. The Croatians answered with an even later one. The game went to a penalty-kick shootout. And there, with eight quick kicks breaking a tie after 120 minutes could not, it was over.
Croatia was heading to the World Cup semifinals. Brazil was going home. Again.