On the cold winter night in Doha last Friday, football fans saw a contrasting scenario for the eternal South American rivals when they met their respective quarter-final counterparts – Brazil got out against Croatia at the Education City stadium just few hours before Argentina won against the Netherlands only 22 kilometers away at Lusail Iconic Stadium, both in the penalty shootout.
Both the teams saw their iconic Nos 10 – Neymar and Lionel Messi - flourish and score, play better football on pen and paper and take the lead, only to give it away in the dying moments to take the game to the tie-breaker.
One of the main factors for this opposing fate for Brazil and Argentina, is momentum.
The five-time world champions Brazil, despite starting the game slowly in the first half, came back strongly with continuous pressure in front of Croatian goalpost.
But goalkeeper Dominik Livakovic stood tall for the last edition's runners-up, frustrating Neymar and his men and taking the game to extra time.
Croatia tactfully and tactically negotiated the Selecao attacks and it needed Neymar to produce an absolute wonder move to break the deadlock after a couple of one-two passes with teammates in quick succession, that too at the very end of the first half of extra time.
But Tite's men took the lead for granted and couldn't hold on for 15 more minutes as Bruno Petkovic restored parity in the 117th minute, finding some space in front of Brazil goalpost, and took all the momentum and confidence with them heading to spotkicks.
On the other hand, Brazil after letting go of the potential winner at the very end looked devastated, and the players were in an utter sense of disbelief, which clearly impacted in their body language and resulted in missing multiple penalties.
Argentina, similarly, had given away a two-goal lead to the Netherlands in the additional time of the second half.
Messi provided a sublime assist to Nahuel Molina for his first ever national goal at the 35th minute mark before scoring his fourth goal in this World Cup from a penalty in the 73rd minute to give the Albiceleste a comfortable 2-0 lead.
Crucially though, Lionel Scaloni's charges then went on a defensive mood and rested several key players, including Rodrigo De Paul, Marcos Acuna and Cristian Romero.
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But the Oranjes still persisted along and got their rewards as late substitute Wout Weghorst first scored a wonderful header in the 83rd minute and then from a witty tactical freekick, in the 11th minute of additional time to make the players and fans in Sky Blue tops speechless.
Unlike Brazil, Messi and his men got the break time to think and reflect, and started extra time from scratch.
Argentina, who started the game with five-men defense, began the extra time in attacking mood and introduced veteran forward Angel di Maria, dropping defender Lisandro Martinez, to go for the kill.
The Albiceleste displayed some good phase of attacking play and created several chances which were blocked by opponent defenders and goalkeeper Andries Noppert, including one that shaved the goalpost just before the final whistle of extra time to take momentum on their side with the support of their ever-cheering fans at the jam-packed stadium.
Another thing that played a vital role in the mixed results for the neighbors in the tie-breaker was the penalty taking line-up where Messi, as usual, took the responsibility on his shoulders to shoot first.
The seven-time Ballon d'Or winner with already a goal from the penalty in the game, scored calmly to give Argentina an early lead after Emiliano Martinez superbly stopped Virjil Van Dijk's effort.
Boosted with confidence, the Argentine goalkeeper then denied Steven Berghuis brilliantly in the next try and from that point the Albiceleste did not make similar mistake of throwing away another 2-0 lead, and sealed the semi-final spot against Croatia with 4-3 win in the tiebreaker, despite a miss by Enzo Fernandez in the fourth shot.
Whereas, Brazil kept their best player of the game, even in the squad, for the last and final shot which was eventually not needed after a couple of misses by his compatriots, coupled with no impact from goalkeeper Alisson Becker.
Moreover, the miss by Real Madrid youngster Rodrygo Goes in the very first shot put his colleagues under tremendous pressure and Brazil weren't able to get out from that stress.
And when Marquinhos was placed at gunpoint to take the fourth penalty to keep his team in contention, he crumbled and hit the post to lose the game 4-2 as Neymar could only watch on from behind with wet eyes and a heavy heart.