France Wins Second World Cup Title, Beating Croatia 4–2
France has won its second World Cup with a decisive 4–2 win over Croatia in the FIFA 2018 World Cup finals in Moscow. Croatia has defied expectations throughout the series, but they eventually folded to the experienced French national team last Sunday.
With the fourth goal, the French side was pre-emptively celebrating their win on the pitch, with Hugo Lloris leaving the goal to join in the victory scrum, as The Guardian reported. They may as well, with Croatia visibly out of the fight after Paul Pogba and Kylian Mbappé scored one goal right after the other.
Lloris committed an error that allowed Croatia to claw back a respectable two-point chase, but the French team was not shaken enough to give up their lead. With a counter-attacking style that lines up sufficiently well against Croatia's game, four points in the finals were as dominant a performance as one can expect in this year's World Cup.
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"We do not realize yet what we just did," left back Lucas Hernández said, still waiting for it all to sink in. "When we arrive tomorrow in Paris, we will realize," he added, as quoted by the New York Times.
The Croatian team may have fallen short, but they were satisfied with their efforts as well. "We have no regrets because we were the better team for much of the game, unfortunately, some clumsy goals swung it their way," Croatia midfielder Luka Modric said. Modric would go on to get the Golden Ball award as this tournament's most outstanding player.
"They will be celebrating, but we can hold our heads high," he added. This will be the second time the World Cup goes to France in 20 years, after the first cup it won when the country hosted the tournament back in 1998.
