Croatia Beats Japan 3-1 at World Cup

Croatia is making a deep run in yet another World Cup, and the team is once again choosing the difficult path.

Dominik Livakovic, Croatia's goalkeeper, turned away three penalty shots in Monday's 3-1 shootout victory over Japan, advancing the tournament's runners-up back to the quarterfinals.

Croatia required extra time in every round of the knockout stage during its run to the final four years ago, and twice it survived a penalty shootout.

"We in Croatia do things this way, you could see that four years ago as well," said Livakovic, who was the back-up goalkeeper to Danijel Subasic in 2018. "I continued the tradition."

This time, Croatia's Mario Pasalic scored the game-winning penalty after extra time ended with the score locked at 1-1.

Pasalic and the other Croatian players ran straight to Livakovic after the ball had gone in, thanking him for save penalties from Takumi Minamino, Kaoru Mitomo, and Maya Yoshida.

Japan leaves a World Cup in the round of 16 for the fourth time, just like in 2002, 2010 and 2018, while Croatia, a semifinalist in 1998, gets ready to play Brazil or South Korea in the quarterfinals. In 2010, the Asian team also fell to Paraguay in a penalty shootout and lost.

Asia is still waiting for a second team to advance beyond the last 16, after South Korea on home soil in 2002.