Moscow: Hosts Russia fought tooth and nail against Croatia on Saturday in the FIFA World Cup quarter-final in Sochi but in the end, it was not enough. Russia was on a high after overcoming a poor Spain in the Round of 16 and they showed immense character against Croatia too. Something, their fans were proud of.
In the Fisht Stadium, it was Russia who scored first through a stunning strike by Denis Cheryshev. However, just minutes later Croatia equalised through a Kramaric header. Both the teams created chances and fought off for the rest of the game before Vida scored for Croatia to put the nation’s one foot in the semi-final.
However, Russia were not relenting, not on their home soil. Mario Fernandez scored with just five minutes of extra time were left to force the match into the penalty shootouts.
Both those teams had been through the drama of a penalty shootout in the Round of 16 and while the pressure got the better of the Russian players, Croatia held their nerves to advance.
But the Russian fans were even more unrelenting than their fans. Despite the heartbreak, Russian flag still kept flying, the fans kept singing.
After all, this was their best performance since the break up of the Soviet Union. However, as the Russian empire in the World Cup fell, imminent jokes on President Vladimir Putin followed.
Throughout the tournament, there were no dearth of jokes on Putin. Be it saying that he was sitting behind the Video Assistant Referee screens to keep the match in Russia’s favour or even kidnapping David de Gea’s family so that Spain would lose, Putin was the butt of many jokes.
It was a similar trail on Saturday as Twitter got flooded with jokes on the Russian President.
A user by the name of Ryma shared a doctored video of Putin where he is accepting that he did the various illegal things to help Russia win the World Cup and yet the players failed him.
Another Twitter user lil lane said that Putin is now preparing to form Soviet Union 2 after Russia’s loss to Croatia.
While Russia mourned the fact that they could not reach the semis, Croatia reached their first World Cup semi-final since 1998 and set up a last four clash against England.
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