Croatia and Japan played out arguably the tightest game at the FIFA World Cup so far, as the 2018 finalists ended up beating the Samurais 3-1 on penalties thanks to a hattrick of spot-kick saves by Dominik Livakovic.
Daizen Maeda had given Japan the lead right before half-time, but Ivan Perisic cancelled their opener by executing a powerful and world-class header that shotstopper Shuichi Gonda could do nothing about.
Speaking to Rai Sport in his post-match conference (via FCInterNews), the ex-Inter and Bayern Munich winger revealed headers are one of his strongest strengths.
“Headed goals are my specialty, I scored at the right time: it was important to make it 1-1 at the start of the second half.”
He believes Croatia deserved to win at the end, given they fought against one of the best group stage teams.
“We deserved, we knew it would be a battle against a strong team that had beaten Spain and Germany. We were prepared, in the end we’ll go to the quarterfinals.”
Perisic added to his national legacy with the equalizer, making history by edging past the legendary Davor Suker with his 10th major tournament goal. He is the player with most goal contributions for Croatia at major tournaments.
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