90 minutes have been played. The match has been won. The
confetti have flown. The celebrations have happened. The trophy has been
lifted. The 2018 FIFA Football World Cup has reached its conclusion and I will
review the action of a thrilling finale in this post.
The Final: France vs
Croatia
The French came into this game as the favourites. Croatia
have shown tremendous team spirit in the tournament and no one can begrudge
them their place in the final. This would be a battle between French flair and
Croatian graft.
It was the Croats who started off
as the better team, attacking the French goal right from the whistle. The
French preferred to stay back and soak up the pressure, and their goalkeeper
wasn’t really troubled by Croatia in the opening 15 minutes or so, despite the
latter having the bulk of the possession. Just after this, France were awarded
a free-kick from about 35 yards after Griezman seemed to go down a little
easily under a Croatian challenge. The French forward got up and tok the
free-kick himself. As luck would have it, the hero of the Semi Final, Mario
Mandzukic got a slight touch on the ball which was enough to take it away and
above Subasic. France were ahead, mostly against the run of play via the first
ever own goal in a World Cup Final! Their lead lasted exactly 10 minutes.
Croatia floated in a free-kick from a similar situation as the French had done
previously, after three consecutive headers by Croatian attackers and a knockdown
from Vida, Perisic took the ball away from Kante, who was closing him down and
fired in with a shot across goal from about 15 yards. The teams were level and
once again, the Croats had come back from a deficit, just as they have done in
every Knockout game so far. Croatia’s joy was short-lived however, as just 5
minutes later, Perisic (football such a cruel game) was adjudged to have
handled the ball inside his own box. The referee consulted the replays after
being addressed by VAR and awarded the penalty to France. Griezman stepped up
and didn’t make any mistake in converting. The French were ahead once again,
and again it must be said, against the run of play. Personally, I do believe it
was a penalty as Perisic clearly makes a motion of his hand towards the ball,
albeit it was more reflex than conscious. However, without VAR, that is penalty
decision that would’ve probably never been given. Croatia continued to be the
better team for the rest of the half but they couldn’t quite get another
breakthrough or trouble the French goalkeeper too much for the rest of it.
The second half too started with
Croatia on top. France did start attacking more, exploiting Mbappe’s incredible
speed to run behind the Croatian defence. Just before the hour mark, A break
down the left by the same Mbappe led to him finding Griezman in the box, who in
turn found Pogba on the edge of the area. The midfielder’s shot was blocked on
the first attempt. On the second attempt, he curled the ball around Modric, who
was trying to close him down, using the Croatian captain as a shield against
the goalkeeper, who was blindsided, and was moving the other way, and couldn’t
go back to try to save the shot. It was a going to be a huge uphill battle for
the underdogs from this point on. Six minutes later, three became four as Mbappe
picked up a square ball from Hernandez in the centre of the field. His low
bouncing shot beat the goalkeeper and found the bottom corner. France had this
won up now and it would take more than a miracle for Croatia to come back. The
latter were given a glimmer of hope with 20 minutes to go. Lloris inexplicably
spent too much time on a back-pass, allowing Mandzukic to get to close. The
Croatian striker got his foot to the ball as Lloris tried to driblle him and
the ball rolled into the net to make the scores 4-2! Lloris was lucky this did
not happen with the scores level, otherwise the reaction to the incident would’ve
been very different. Croatia found some of their deflated spirit returning
after this gift and for the next 10 minutes or so looked likely to trouble the
French defence again. However, as the game went on, they ran out of ideas and
France were able to hold out. As the final whistle, France were confirmed as
being the Football World Cup Champions for the second time, 20 years on from
their first win.
Till Qatar in 2022, signing off…
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