‘Beating Brazil may be the best feeling ever’

Croatia coach Zlatko Dalic pledged "this is not the end" after his team sensationally dumped Brazil out of the World Cup on penalties at the quarter-final stage on Friday.

"This is a victory for Croatian people," said Dalic. "A great match. We eliminated the main favourites. This is Croatia -- pride, courage, faith and patriotism."

He said his team had risen to the challenge when under the most intense pressure.

"Croatia is the best when it's needed. When it matters, Croatia always succeeds. No one should underestimate us.This is not the end, we are moving on. We can achieve a lot."

Croatia defender Borna Sosa said beating Brazil was the "best feeling ever".

"There were a lot of emotions, a lot of happy tears there," Sosa said. "We are really showing many, many (good) results with our country. Nobody expects this, nobody believes in us, never, so that's why it's really emotional when you achieve things like this, when you beat Brazil.

"For me Brazil is football, and football is Brazil. To beat Brazil is maybe the best feeling ever."

"As to the penalty shootout we are fighters, we played our hearts out and that's it," said Croatia keeper Dominik Livakovic, who was named man of the match. "We are experienced and we are raised as fighters.

"We spare no effort giving our best, and that is our recipe for success."