World Cup 2018: A combined XI of the best players from the round of 16
One of the best World Cup tournaments ever somehow continues to get even better. With the defending champions Germany eliminated in the group stage, 16 teams continued on their quest to inherit the tag of World Champions.
As we have witnessed so far in this tournament, no team was going to give away the opportunity to progress further without putting up a fight. This made for some cracking encounters in the World Cup round of 16.
Goals in every game mean that the group stage game between France and Denmark continues to be the only goalless tie of the tournament. Only one encounter was decided by more than one goal, Brazil's 2-0 win against Mexico. Three matches went the distance and were decided on penalties. There were some underdog victories as well with the biggest one being the elimination of 2010 champions Spain by hosts Russia.
Aforementioned Brazil and Russia made it through along with France, Uruguay, Croatia, Belgium, Sweden and England to set up some mouth-watering quarterfinal clashes. We look at the best individual performers in the first knockout round in a 4-3-3 formation:
Goalkeeper: Igor Akinfeev (Russia)
The Russian captain produced a heroic performance and his country beat the odds to progress against the much-favoured Spaniards. His man-of-the-match performance included 2 magnificent saves in the penalty shootout denying Koke and Iago Aspas.
There was nothing the 32-year-old could do about the own goal that his side conceded. He saved whatever else Spain threw at him over the course of the game. He registered nine saves over 120 minutes though very few really troubled him as Spain spent the game passing the ball around to little effect. Akinfeev then upstaged his much-fancied opposite number David de Gea in the penalty shootout to see his team though.