France is celebrating as Les Bleus captain Hugo Lloris and his teammates carried the golden World Cup trophy around Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium. The French players were letting loose the euphoria that coach Didier Deschamps had warned about containing ahead of the final.
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MOSCOW, SUNDAY – France is celebrating as Les Bleus captain Hugo Lloris and his teammates carried the golden World Cup trophy around Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium on Sunday (15/7/2018). The French players were letting loose the euphoria that coach Didier Deschamps had warned about containing ahead of the final.
France escaped from under Croatian pressure early in the first half, thanks to Croatian striker Mario Mandzukic’s own goal in the 18th minute, followed by Antoine Griezmann’s penalty shot in the 38th minute. Midfielder Paul Pogba followed with France’s third goal in the 59th minute and rising superstar Kylian Mbappe scored their fourth goal in the 65th minute.
Ivan Perisic and Mandzukic, who exploited an inexplicable error by Lloris, scored Croatia’s two goals.
After the match, France’s supporters sang and danced to celebrate the team snatching the world title at Luzhniki Stadium after a 20-year wait. This was the fruit of championing the collective spirit above individual egos, like Griezmann said before the final. “If I was top scorer, maybe we would’ve lost. We’re all better together,” he said.
With the victory, Deschamps became the third person after Brazil’s Mario Zagallo and Germany’s Franz Beckenbauer to win the World Cup both as a player and a manager. Deschamps was France’s captain in the 1998 World Cup, where it defeated Brazil 3-0 in the final. This year’s 4-2 victory over Croatia is the biggest win in a World Cup final since Brazil defeated Sweden 5-2 in the 1958 final. Meanwhile, Croatian Luka Modric won Best Player while Frenchman Mbappe snatched Best Young Player.
“We prepared ourselves well,” Deschamps said. Included in the preparation was a ban on French footballers to be too euphoric over clinching a ticket to the final. Deschamps wished to avoid repeating France’s mistake in the 2016 Euro Cup final, when it was defeated 0-1 by Portugal after its status as fan favorite lulled the team into complacency.
For Croatia, the defeat reopened an old wound from two decades ago. In the 1998 World Cup, Croatia performed impressively and finished third. This time, they gave similarly impressive performance under Luka Modric’s captainship. The team will surely be remembered for its performance in Russia and especially for their “never-surrender” mentality.
Croatia was not a fan favorite in the 2018 World Cup. They struggled to reach the final in Russia, their journey undermined by a corruption scandal that involved the top management of the country’s soccer federation, accusations of false testimonies by Modric and Dejan Lovren and the dismissal of their coach.
However, to borrow a statement from England coach Gareth Southgate, Croatia had a squad of “hardened warriors”. They were extremely strong-willed in working together to save the Vatreni squad from elimination. They struggled through three “life or death” matches in the Round of 16. All three ended with injury times and two others ended in penalty shootouts. Their fighting spirit kept their hopes alive, much like the spirit to survive another day on a battlefield. Yes, some of the Croatian players had gone through hardships in their youth, when the country struggled in its war for independence between 1991 and 1995.
This militancy was a core character of Zlatko Dalic’s squad. They were united by a sense of sharing the same fate, and the players often seen as scapegoats for their team’s losses emerged as key players, such as Domagoj Vida and Lovren. Nevertheless, the Croatian warriors, hardened by years of experience, need to acknowledge the superiority of France’s squad of youthful footballers.