Croatia advanced to the knockout stages unbeaten, thanks to Ivan Perisic and Milan Badelj’s goals. It was down to the wire as Iceland was excellent against Croatia. Iceland had missed their share of chances, but with a bit more finesse, they might have been on their way to the last 16 match with France.
Iceland looked menacing as the situation demanded but were left wanting for more from their finishers. Croatia struck back during the second half of the match and Milan Badelj hit the crossbar and then finished into the back of the net on the 53rd minute. He finished exquisitely to charge into a bouncing ball, kept his head over it to strike it onto the ground, past Iceland keeper Hannes Halldorson.
Dejan Lovren however, handled a ball to offer a glimmer of hope to Iceland who scored from the resulting penalty kick taken by Gylfi Sigurdsson who fired onto the roof of the net in the 76th minute.
However, just as stoppage time approached, Iceland tried to capitalize on the situation throwing men forward in order to progress to the knockout stages of the tournament while preventing Argentina from progressing to the next round. Ivan Persic had other ideas and he capitalized on the situation of Iceland players going forward and scored to help Argentina progress to the knock out stages, dumping out Iceland.
