France Reach The Summit Again

A shower of golden ticker tape cascaded down on France’s rain-soaked players as they celebrated winning the World Cup for a second time in one of the most memorable Finals of the modern era. Minutes earlier, as the players queued up to receive the trophy, the heavens had opened, soaking the FIFA dignitaries and adding to the chaos of an already frenetic night in Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium.

- Gavin Hamilton

It was a frantic finale to a hugely eventful tournament. Thirty-two days packed with incident and drama, shocks and surprises. France were the last men standing but they fully deserved their victory, having overcome a Croatia side that had finally been undone by fatigue after an exhausting journey to the Final.

It was a Final that had everything: great goals, own goals, thunderstorms and even a pitch invasion from punk band Pussy Riot, protesting at the repressive regime of Russian president Vladmir Putin.

Croatia were left nursing a sense of injustice when, having brought the game level at 1-1 after half an hour, they conceded a penalty to a controversial refereeing decision. By the letter of the law, Ivan Perisic had handled the ball at a corner, but referee Nestor Pitana took an age to assess the images on the pitchside VAR monitor.

The game had been evenly matched until then, but Croatia were visibly affected by a decision which resulted in Antoine Griezmann’s penalty giving France a lead they never surrendered.

Croatia, having staged a remarkable comeback in all three of their earlier knockout games en route to the Final, tried to rally themselves, but then their energies evaporated. Goals in quick succession from Kylian Mbappe and Paul Pogba cemented France’s impregnable lead. Although Hugo Lloris gave Croatia hope with a goalkeeping howler that brought the deficit back to two goals, Croatia could not find the energy to challenge in the remaining minutes.