To say that some coaches, starting with Didier Deschamps, believe that it is useless to work on penalties in training… According to the epilogue of Japan-Croatia (1-1; 1-3 on penalties ) Monday, then the post-match reactions in the Croatian camp, it’s a hell of a miscalculation. Dominik Livakovic indeed succeeded in repelling three Japanese attempts (Minamino, Mitoma and Yoshida) during this session which was extremely poorly managed by the Japanese shooters. Only the Portuguese Ricardo (during Portugal-England in 2006)… and the Croatian Danijel Subasic (against Denmark in 2018) had so far achieved such a feat in a World Cup.
“Dominik was extraordinary, was able to savor the Croatian coach Zlatko Dalic. On Sunday, we finished training with a penalty shootout. He had already managed important rescues. So I had a lot of confidence in him for this exercise, and he put himself on the level of Subasic to give confidence to others. “Like what, an end of training session, even without the adrenaline / pressure of competition, can give certainty to a goalkeeper.
On the road to Neymar and Brazil
Dominik Livakovic (27), who said he experienced “the greatest moment of his career” on Monday afternoon in Qatar, confirms the importance of such preparation for a penalty shootout. “We had analyzed the way they were shooting,” said the Dinamo Zagreb goalkeeper. Apart from the first shot [du Monégasque Minamino], they were quite successful in their attempts. I did my best and got a little lucky. »
Logically elected man of the match, Dominik Livakovic now has three days to go over the habits of Brazilian hitters, before this tantalizing quarter-final on Friday (4 p.m.). A priori, Neymar is much more formidable than Minamino in the exercise.