The moment Marquinhos’ shot hit the base of the far post, the Croatian players rushed towards their goalkeeper Dominik Livakovic. An ecstatic Luka Modric pumped his fist in the air, coach Zlatko Dalic was hugged by the support staff and the Education City Stadium — the Croatian fans here — was up on its feet.

Brazil are out of the World Cup and Croatia, deservingly, are in the semi-finals. Deservingly, because Croatia have now forced two top teams out of the tournament. They did not let Belgium, the No.2 ranked side in the world, score in their group-stage match, ensuring their exit. And now, they have slayed the No.1 team, Brazil.

On Friday, with the giant screen screaming a 4-2 scoreline, the dance stopped. Swagger, if there was any, had gone down the drain. Instead, the teary-eyed and shell-shocked Brazilians could only watch in dismay. Another World Cup and another round of failure for the five-time champions. Another promise of a false dawn so common with Brazil every time a World Cup comes.

Livakovic, who had made three saves in the tie-breaker win against Japan in the round-of-16 clash, was once again the hero. He guessed right and dived to his left to save Rodrygo’s first penalty. He was unlucky to miss out on one more save.

The Croatians, always a difficult team in the knock-out rounds, had converted all their four penalties. Modric’s shot was probably the pick of the lot, an inch-perfect placement to the right of Brazil goalkeeper Alisson Becker to make it 3-1 in Croatia’s favour.

It was a tremendous effort from a bunch of Croatians who were not given a chance by most in the build-up to Friday’s quarter-final clash. As Modric, the captain, had said on match-eve: “Brazil are always the favourites, but we are not the team who will be satisfied with a last-eight place finish.”

Modric and his teammates showed the world that with discipline and by sticking to a plan, you can stop a team like Brazil. It was their first win against the world’s top-ranked team and what a stage they chose to do that.

And when Livakovic, who was almost unbeatable throughout the 120 minutes of action barring once when Neymar found the target, said at the post-match news conference that they are fighters, you could only doff your hat to their resilience. “We are all fighters. We fight till the end and that’s what we did today (Friday),” the 27-year-old said.

Till three minutes to the final whistle in the second half of the extra time, Croatia were down and almost out. Leading 1-0, Brazil had one foot in the last-four stage. The fans were chanting, in the dugout the happy faces in yellow shirts were beaming. Coach Tite also looked confident of sealing it. Then something happened.

Substitute Mislav Orsic made a run down the left flank and picked out Bruno Petkovic on the edge of the box. Petkovic swept a left-footer which took a wicked deflection off Marquinhos and beat a diving Alisson to hit the back of the net. The Croatians let out a roar, they were alive and kicking.

It was one lapse in concentration from Croatia which was punished by a moment of brilliance that threatened to end their campaign. Croatia defended with everything they had till the first minute of injury-time in the first half of the extra-time. And then they buckled.

Neymar, not someone who will let you go off the hook, volleyed it home to give Brazil the lead. Collecting the ball on the edge of the rival penalty box, Neymar played a delightful one-two with Lucas Paqueta, which left defender Josko Gvardiol flat on the ground. Paqueta’s return pass to Neymar was perfect and the Brazilian No. 10 fended off a block, rounded off goalkeeper Livakovic and smashed it in.

The Education City Stadium in Doha erupted in joy, on the byline the teammates rushed to celebrate with Neymar and on the sideline coach Tite, relieved that the deadlock was finally broken, embraced the support staff. It was unbridled euphoria. Modric looked dejected but his face showed that they would not give in.

Brazil had numerous chances during the regulation time but just did not know how to get it past Livakovic. The Dinamo Zagreb goalkeeper was in a different zone on Friday making save after save.

Livakovic was symbolic to Croatia’s desperation to not give up. In the end, that paid off. Croatia are in the semis for the second successive World Cup. And marvellous Modric’s World Cup dream continues.

Tite resigns

Brazil coach Tite stepped down from his post following the defeat. He made the announcement at the postmatch media conference. The 61-year-old, who had taken over from Dunga in June 2016, had, however, let the world know in February this year that he would quit after the World Cup.