FIVE children, whose ages range between three and six, provided added fun for Croatian fans on Wednesday night at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow after their 2-1 win over England.

The children, three boys and two girls, belong to three Croatia players and they took to the stadium pitch moments after the 2018 FIFA World Cup semi-final match had ended.

While one of them belong to Domagoj Vida, two belong to Ivan Perisic (Leonardo and Manuela) and Ivan Strinic has the other two children.

The trio of Vida, Perisic and Strinic all played during the match.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the children had left their mothers in the spectator stands to join their fathers on the pitch immediately the match ended.

They started playing with a ball among themselves, heading towards one of the goalposts and shooting into the net, drawing applause from the stands.

Their action immediately attracted other spectators who were already leaving the terraces, and they joined in cheering the children.

This was,  however,  to the displeasure of the stadium stewards who were by then already appealing to the spectators to leave the terraces and continue their celebration outside the main bowl.

Interestingly, three of the four goals the children scored during their short game were scored by Leonardo, one of the children belonging to Perisic who scored during the match against England.

While he (Perisic) scored the equaliser, he also provided the assist for Mario Mandzukic’s winning goal and then won the game’s Man of the Match award.

Vida later emerged from the sidelines where he and other teammates were celebrating with their team officials and fans to stop the children, herding them to their parents.

His action, though, met grunts of disapproval from the thousands of spectators who had gathered to turn the children  into a spectacle

– July 12, 2018 @ 90:15 GMT |