Final offers France shot at redemption
After 62 games, the 2018 World Cup is down to its final two teams — France and Croatia. They have traveled different roads to Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, but both are deserving of a shot at the Cup on Sunday. Here are five storylines to pay attention to heading into the final.
A chance at redemption for France:
Les Bleus should have won the Euro 2016 final against Portugal easily. Instead, they lost a dreadful game in front of their home crowd, 1-0. That’s one of the main reason they weren’t favorites coming into this tournament, despite having one of the world’s deepest rosters. Now is their chance to make things right.
Does France really play antisoccer?
After losing 1-0 to France in the first semifinal, Belgium captain Eden Hazard and keeper Thibaut Courtois made clear what they thought of their opponents, accusing them of playing “anti-[soccer].” Did France play an overly defensive game? No, that’s nearly impossible for a team that features the likes of Kylian Mb appe,Antoi ne Griezmann and Paul Pog ba. But once they got their goal, they made shutting down Belgium their priority, only attacking when there were clear openings. That ’s not antisoccer, that’s smart soccer with the chance at the final on the line.
Maybe Deschamps is France’s lucky charm?
Coming into the tournament, France’s biggest weakness was thought to be the man on the sidelines, manager Didier Deschamps. Though he hasn’t exactly swayed his naysayers yet, he quietly has had a fine tournament — especially against Belgium, when he got his tactics exactly right. Now he has the chance to guide his country to its second World Cup title, the first came in 1998, when he was the team’s captain.
Can anyone actually beat Croatia?
Three straight comebacks, three straight extra-time games. After beating Russia on penalty kicks Saturday afternoon, it looked as if Croatia would be lucky to even be standing at the end of their semif inal with England. Instead, Ivan Perisic’s phenomenal secondhalf equalizer inspired his team to a victory in which they looked the fresher side for much of the latter stages of the game. Croatia may not be the most talented side in the world, or even the second most, but you def initely can’t count them out.
There are no sure things at this World Cup:
France will enter the final clear favorites and would be even if Croatia hadn’t pl aye d 360 minutes across their past three matches. But if this World Cup has taught us anything, it’s that nothing is a sure bet. Just ask Germany, Spain and Brazil.