France climbed the mountain for the second time in its history, beating Croatia 4-2 in a wild World Cup final that had more “football, bloody hell” moments than anyone could have expected. In the end, the French may have benefited from one (or perhaps two) significant officiating decisions, but there was no denying that the French deserved the victory.
The French goals came from a Mario Mandzukic own goal (after a free kick dubiously won on an Antoine Griezmann dive), a Griezmann penalty (after a debated, VAR-assisted hand-ball penalty call on Ivan Perisic that I felt was correct), a glorious start-the-play-and-finish-it goal by Paul Pogba and a fourth by Kylian Mbappé.
Croatia’s goals were scored by Perisic and Mandzukic (on a howler by Hugo Lloris), while Luka Modric has the consolation of going home with the Golden Ball as the tournament’s best player.
