The final match of the 2018 World Cup was played, at Luzhniki Stadium in Russia, on July 15. The game, as anticipated, was played in front of 78,011 Soccer fans. Having defeated England and Belgium in the semis, Croatia and France played for the title.

Both teams had high hopes for winning the title as going home without it, from this stage, was unthinkable. France and Croatia fought hard right from their opening game. The Croatian team started off with a 2-0 win over Nigeria, while the French side registered a convincing 2-1 win over Australia.

France and Croatia beat six teams, three teams in the group stages and three in the knockout stages, to reach in the finals.

In the end, as predicted in the beginning, the strongest team of the World Cup, France came out above everyone by beating another finalist, Croatia, noted ESPN.

Match stats

In the first-half, France didn’t look to press more as they only kept thirty-three percent possession, according to Sofascore. Croatia tried to find an equalizer after an own-goal, by the striker, Mario Mandzukic in the early minutes of the game. The trailing team unlocked the French defense in the 28th minute, with the help of the World Cup hero, Ivan Perisic, and leveled the score to 1-1.

Just after ten minutes of the equalizer, the Croatian defense, again, lost their bearings and conceded another goal. The second goal for France was scored by Antoine Griezmann in the 38th minute.

At half-time, the French side was leading with a 2-1 score.

In the second-half, rather than finding the equalizer, for the second time in the game, Croatia conceded two more goals in 59th and 65th minute that came from Paul Pogba and Kylian Mbappe in that order. After trailing by a three-goal deficit, the Croatian players gave a quick reply by scoring their second goal with the help of Mandzukic.

The 4-2 score gave Croatia a surge of hopes.

The Croatian coach, Zlatko Dalic, made two substitutions in hopes of somehow scoring two more goals with the help of the fresh legs. However, it didn’t happen until the injury time and the game ended with a historic win for France.

Glorious France

Before the 2016 Euro Cup final against Portugal, France was carried away by winning their previous matches in the competition.

They took their opponents for granted, and as a result, they gave up the 2016 Euro Cup to Portugal by losing in the finals. The French midfielder, Paul Pogba, confessed this before the 2018 World Cup final that he and his teammates won’t make the same mistake this time around.

After 20 years, France again claimed the World Cup throne. They won their first World Cup title in 1998 and today, they claimed their second World Cup after defeating Croatia. Players like Griezmann, Pogba, Mbappe and many others performed excellently well throughout the competition. Their hard work and teamwork finally paid off today as this day will go down in history.
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