Brazil had six players in attack when they conceded Croatia’s equalizing goal

Croatia’s equalizing goal, scored 12 minutes into the second half of extra time, was a succession of mistakes by the Brazilian team, which was winning by 1-0. Tite’s team was unable to manage the result, going on the attack disorganized way. Thus, the decision went to penalties and the Croatians left with the vacancy.

In normal time, the quarterfinal match ended in a goalless draw, which led to extra time. Neymar opened the scoring and Brazil was very close to a place in the semifinals, when everything collapsed.

In the move that led to Croatia’s equalizer in overtime, the Brazilian team had six athletes in front of the ball in the offensive sector: Casemiro, Fred, Neymar, Rodrygo, Pedro and Antony.

The bid began with a rash attack pulled by Pedro. The Flamengo striker goes down the middle and tries to open the move on the right for Fred. He would have two other options: cut to the left, holding the ball more, or open the move for Neymar, who went down alongside Rodrygo on the left – against just one Croatian marker.

But the pass goes long, Fred doesn’t get the domain and takes the tackle from Gvardiol. With spaces in the marking, the Croatian Lovren manages to get the rest on the bottom line and, with a kick, removes the ball. Perisic had a bad header on the flank, but Danilo, who had the option to dominate, headed into the middle of the attack, where there were three Croatian players better positioned. Majer takes the lead and plays for Modric.

Casemiro, who had already taken a yellow card, goes for the ball, but misses the tackle and doesn’t kill the move, letting Modric dominate and follow up with the move. If he had committed the foul, the Brazilian defensive midfielder could have received the second yellow and, consequently, been expelled.

Unmarked, Modric passes to Vlasic. This is where the Croatian attack finds that more than half of the Brazilian players are ahead, and there is an avenue to advance into Brazil’s attacking field.

With Tite’s selection disorganized in the midfield, Vlasic had time to dominate and open up on the left for Orsic, also free of marking, as Danilo cut into the middle and left space for the Croatian to advance to the attack at speed.

At that moment, the defense was poorly distributed, with three players in the middle —Danilo, Thiago Silva and Marquinhos— and Alex Sandro, further ahead, trying to attack Vlasic, without success.

Orsic touches the ball twice, invades the area and is free to play in the middle for Petkovic to kick in front of Thiago Silva and Marquinhos. The defender tries to block the kick and ends up giving the ball a slight deflection, further hindering Alisson, who jumped but did not reach it.

It was Croatia’s only successful finish in 117 minutes of play. The European team took another eight shots on goal, all of which missed. And one of those wrong shots was after the tie, with Majer, which almost did not become the goal of the Croatian comeback.

The Brazilian team finished 21 times. So much so that goalkeeper Livakovic left the field as the hero of the game. In addition to the two penalties he took in the final kicks, he made 11 interventions with the ball rolling. There were also seven attempts blocked by the defenders and two kicks out.

The Brazilian defense, a pillar of the Tite era, let its guard down at the Qatar World Cup. The team just didn’t concede goals in the first two matches, when they beat Serbia and Switzerland. Afterwards, he conceded goals in the other three games he played: against Cameroon, South Korea and Croatia.