Jurgen Klinsmann, a former coach of Germany, charged Tite, the manager of Brazil, with making a fundamental mistake.
He claimed that the decision to reserve Neymar for his team’s final spot-kick in the penalty shootout contributed to their loss in the shootout.
Neymar scored a spectacular individual goal at the end of the first period of extra time to put Brazil ahead, but Bruno Petkovic equalised for the Europeans just three minutes later.
Nikola Vlasic, Luka Modric, Lovro Majer and Mislav Orsic all scored from the spot for Croatia but Marquinhos’ effort came off the post.
Croatia won the 4-2 in the shootout to progress to the semifinals. Why Brazil has to wait till next four years.
Klinsmann told the BBC that different managers adopt totally different approaches to taking spot kicks.
He noted that while some managers would want their best takers to go first, some others will save them for the difficult moments.
But for Klinsmann, it is best for the best penalty takers to take first which has been the case in recent years.
“Set the tone, don’t keep them for the fifth basically because you might not get the chance to kick,” he added.
“Nemyar would have been the first one for me. Just set the tone, score the first one and calm everyone else down.”
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