World Cup: a triumph made in Paris

The 2018 World Cup was a tournament for the ages, said Jason Burt in The Daily Telegraph. And last Sunday, it got the final it deserved. France’s 4-2 victory over Croatia in Moscow was a “remarkable” encounter. Croatia were the better team for most of the match, and they will have “burned with a sense of injustice” over the first two French goals – one originating in a controversial free kick, the other coming from a penalty awarded after the ball struck Ivan Perišic’s hand. ultimately, France deserved their triumph, said Ian Ladyman in the Daily Mail. They are the first team to score four goals in a World Cup final since Brazil in 1970, having come through the “tough half” of the draw, defeating Argentina, Uruguay and Belgium en route. They have “won a World Cup the hard way”.

No team in the tournament “possessed more lethal attacking talent” than France, said Brian Phillips in The New Yorker. But much of the time, their manager, Didier Deschamps, seemed reluctant to “utilise” that weapon. Instead, his players “packed the back of the pitch”; only once they had frustrated and worn out their opponents would they charge past them. This is a team that played “negative football while visibly retaining the highalert, supercharged-ions look of a group that’s on the attack”. And their most supercharged player was Kylian Mbappé, said Paul Hayward in The Daily Telegraph. The 19-year-old forward “tormented defences with his speed”: against Argentina, he clocked an astonishing 23mph. Yet it’s not just the “effervescence of his attacks” that makes him extraordinary. He is remarkably mature, too – he speaks “with the wisdom of one who has spent many years reflecting on their career from a vineyard”. Mbappé may have been the tournament’s breakout star, but he hasn’t exactly “come out of nowhere”, said James Gheerbrant in The Times. Last year, Paris Saint-germain signed him for £120m, making him – at only 18 – the second most expensive footballer in history.

Mbappé’s ascent confirms that “Greater Paris is the world’s top talent pool”, said Simon Kuper on ESPN. He is one of seven players in the squad – alongside Paul Pogba and N’golo Kanté, two of the best midfielders at this tournament – who grew up in the banlieues, the capital’s “densely packed” suburbs. Compare that to the France team that won Euro 1984 without a single player from Greater Paris in its starting line-up. That transformation is down to an impressive academy system and an “efficient state sporting structure”, which ensures that even the poorest French suburb boasts “a state-funded sports club with accredited coaches”. Many of the talented Parisians don’t even end up playing for France: eight Paris-born footballers at the World Cup represented other countries, including Senegal and Morocco.

You have to feel for Croatia, said David Hytner in The Guardian. With a population of only four million, it’s the 129th biggest nation in the world. Countries of that size are “not supposed” to reach the final: the last time it happened was 1950, when Uruguay beat Brazil. The team’s endurance was staggering – although they had played the equivalent of a game more than France, after three successive matches that went to extra time, these warriors “did not stop pushing”. No player has been more important to Croatia than their captain, Luka Modric, said Barney Ronay in the same paper. For too long, the Real Madrid midfielder has been relatively unheralded. That’s testament to the kind of footballer he is: “the ultimate high-grade component”, a part that makes “every other part function with more vim and more precision”. Finally, though, he is being lavished with acclaim: he was given the Golden Ball award for the tournament’s best player. Modric deserves every accolade.