Ivan Rakitic seemed to be trying not to look up and he wasn’t listening either, not when Alejandro Hernández Hernández came for one of those pointless pep talks referees like so much. He’d taken penalties before, thank you very much. And even if his mother-in-law once sent him a picture of a labrador with a ball at its paws and the message, “your dog takes them better than you”, he’s not bad either.
He had done it in the derby, rolled in at Madrid to keep Sevilla in the title race and is the only player to be put on the spot two World Cup shootouts in a row, scoring the decisive fifth to take Croatia into the quarters and semis in 2018, the coolest man in football.
