Super Sunday: History vs romance as France, Croatia face off

MOSCOW: Sunday’s World Cup final between Croatia and France is a layered study in contrasts. On one side of the pitch is a team from a country with a population of 4.2 million, a fourth Delhi’s, and which doesn’t have a strong domestic football league. On the other, standing between it and its first World Cup is France, a team that knows what it takes to win one. The French team, birthed from a quality youth development programme, marries attacking class with superb defensive organisation.

At different times in Russia, especially in the knockout rounds, Croatia’s performance resembled that of Muhammad Ali during his 1974 “rumble in the jungle” with George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire. Ali suffered for seven rounds before winning.

Croatia has done that over the course of three knockout games. As skipper Luka Modric says, it is perhaps in the stars. “There

will be excess power and excess energy, no worries about that,” Croatia midfielder Ivan Rakitic said, at a press conference on Friday, brushing aside concerns of the team being tired after its bruising path to the final.

Based on the kind of resolve Croatia has shown, Rakitic can be taken at face value, especially because many in the team are at the World Cup’s equivalent of

the last chance saloon. Such as Modric, the LM10 who will be at Luzhniki Stadium while Lionel Messi, the man who owns the moniker, will be far, far away.

Modric is the team’s brain, a magnificent footballer who was a refugee as a boy, whose grandfather was shot by a Serbian militia when he was six.

“The war made me stronger, it was a very hard time for me

and my family. I don’t want to drag that with me forever, but I don’t want to forget about it either,” Modric had said after signing for Tottenham Hotspur in 2008.

Modric is 32, Rakitic is 30, goalkeeper Danijel Subhasic is 33, striker Mario Mandzukic is 32 and there are three more in the squad who may not play another World Cup.

For long the generation of 1998 has been Croatia’s gold standard, its ‘Suker stars’. The baton passed when Croatia beat England in the semi-final.

But after all the team has done, Croatia could still be swatted away by France. Les Bleus have thrived because of their adaptability. The team fizzed when Argentina threatened to win the round-of-16 clash and was clinical against Uruguay and Belgium. It was “anti-football” said Belgium’s marquees after France defended their team out of the semi-final.

France coach Didier Deschamps seems to have absorbed more about Italian football’s defensive nous than he gets credit for (does he get credit for anything at all?). Like Uruguay coach Oscar Tabarez has said, France shows that having the ball can be an overrated attribute.

“I don’t care how. I want a second star to be on this shirt, and if I have the star, I do not care about the game we have played,” said France’s Antoine Griezmann on Friday.

So, this may well be France’s final to lose. But then, it is up against a team that really has nothing to lose.