France beat Croatia 4-2 in the finals to become the new World Cup Champions on Sunday. Croatian team, which had reached the World Cup final for the first time in their footballing history, put up a great fight, but their efforts fell short of what was required to be the worthy World Cup Champions.
France got the lead in the 18th minute through an own goal by Croatia’s Mandzukic. Croatia was quick to equalise it through a brilliant goal by Perisic 10 minutes later. But, the Croatian celebration was short-lived as France was awarded a penalty in the 38th minute. Griezmann made no mistake as he lobbed the ball into the net, giving his team the crucial 2-1 lead in the first half.
Croatia began the second half with renewed vigour and created plenty of chances by playing an incredibly attacking game. However, it was France that had the last laugh as they scored two back-to-back goals through Pogba in the 59th minute and Mbappe in the 65th minute taking the lead to 4-1 for France. The scoreline for France could have been even better had their couple of players not squandered a few easy chances.
With a 4-1 lead, it appeared that France players became complacent and paid a price for their overconfidence as Mandrzukic successfully snatched the ball from the French goalkeeper to convert it into an easy goal.
This is France’s second World Cup title after Zinedine Zidane led the team to win their first title in 1998.
Dejected Croatian playersCroatia had beaten England 2-1 in the semi-final to reach the final, while France had defeated a resurgent Belgium in their encounter of last-four.
Belgium had earlier defeated England to claim the third spot in the World Cup competition.