How many times do we see a last second goal in football? Not many. Today was one of these days, and Turkey managed to do miracles again. But let’s start from the beginning. I went to watch Turkey vs. Croatia on a very popular football bar here in NYC. As I found my corner spot on the bar and the match started I could really not tell who was going to win. Croatia seemed a bit more skillful and more likely to win, but little did I know that I was about to experience one of the craziest football matches ever.

The entire first and second halves were extremely physical, with very little skill and a lot of good chances missed. It bugged me a bit to see 2 professional squads missing easy passes and chances.

The crowd around was almost having a heart attack, and for one second there I felt happy that none of the teams on the large screen TVs were Brazil.

And so the match went to overtime… and the same scenario continued to present itself. But then, somehow, what neither of the 2 did in 120 minutes, was done in 2 minutes. Croatia scored with Klasnic after a bad mistake from Turkish goalie Rüştü. The Croatian fans went nuts! The Turkish ones put their heads down thinking that was the end of it.

Isn’t football the best sport ever? You can never predict what will really happen until the referee blows the final whistle.

In the last second of overtime, Şentürk kicked the ball into Croatia’s net. The impossible had just happened. Both team now faced penalty shootouts, not a very happy ending for the Croatians. With the morale up, Turkey converted all their penalties, while Croatia missed 3 out of 4.

End of story. Turkey will now face Germany on the semi-finals on Wednesday. Miracles do happen in football.