Croatia and France to meet under the majesty of the final

Add together the populations of Paris, Marseilles, Lyon, and Toulouse, and you get a figure larger than Croatia’s entire social sum.

Zagreb is home to a touch over 800,000 people; that’s like putting together Newcastle and Wollongong. As was detailed in this excellent Guardian article the Croatian football system exists in a state of relative chaos, where corruption and political toxicity flare up almost as often as actual flares. 

Hold on. Let’s take a moment, pause briefly and drown out the giddy parping of the pre-match hype orchestra. Let’s go on a trip.

There’s a small, sunny town called Imotski, squeezed in toward the lower end of Croatia’s long, spindly tail. Dug into the hills, terracotta roofs neatly cap crispy, chalky buildings, with windows chiselled out like small ebony ingots. The streets wind around, twirling between the houses before opening up to cloister cafes, or fanning out to reveal a town square or a cathedral forecourt.

One side of the town looks out over an expanse of great meadowy fields, fringed by darling little trees, standing like rows of freshly snapped broccoli florets. All of it is bathed in gentle sunlight.

Nearby, there’s a karst lake formation, which most of the year is filled with brilliant azure waters. Modro jezero, otherwise known as the Blue Lake, was likely formed by the collapse of a large cave hall; it’s a distinctly gorgeous sinkhole, really. 

Occasionally, the lake dries up – statistically, this happens fairly rarely, perhaps a handful of times in a century. But when it does, and the splish-splashing is halted, the locals re-purpose what would otherwise be a fairly forlorn patch of dried mud; they paint on some lines, knock a few goals together, and kick off.

Luka Modrić is 32, and although his divine ability is such that age will not curtail it too acutely, the next World Cup might see a rather less effective version trot out in the red checks, if indeed he plays on until then. Mario Mandžukić is 32 as well. 

Vedran Ćorluka, Ivan Rakitić, Danijel Subašić; all are 30 or older. This team is not, in its entirety, representative of the dying embers of some Golden Generation, but it is propped up by key players who are reaching the end of their prime years, or will have done so by the time the next World Cup rolls around.

Croatia’s midfielder Luka Modric (L) celebrates scoring a penalty (PATRICK HERTZOG/AFP/Getty Images)

So, just like waters of the Blue Lake being drawn mistily up to meet the sapphire sky, the fact that Croatia have made the final seems as preciously rare an event, perhaps even rarer. Like the Imotski locals, Croatia will mark it by playing football too, and they’ll need to play well; there may not be another opportunity like this for another hundred years.

France, meanwhile – although they’ve only won one World Cup – have at one point or another over the last 60 years placed in first, second, third and fourth spot at the big tourney. They look set – enjoying as they do a hugely talented team that is the second-youngest in the World Cup – to contend for the foreseeable future.

The conveyor belt of French talent that sends out dashing wingers, or mountainous centre backs to European clubs big and small is unlikely to slow over the next decade or two. They are a jewel encrusted member of the international footballing aristocracy, and have now made the finals of the last two major tournaments they’ve been in. Overdogs, well, yes, indeed they are.

So, how can Croatia overcome a team as bristling with counter-attacking talent as France’s, that have beaten Argentina, Uruguay, and Belgium on route to the final? Certainly, it would be foolish to assume Didier Deschamps will arrange his team in a different system to that which he’s stolidly been wedded for most of the tournament.

France will probably be content to let Modrić and Rakitić control the ball, if they want to, draw them up the pitch, then exploit the space the might hypothetically leave on the break. Kylian Mbappé is the most dangerous counter-attacking player in the world, probably, and the thought of him running, panting and whirring and grinning, at a back-tracking Dejan Lovren, well, the countries that share a land border with Croatia might well be woken up by the nation screaming sranje! as one.

Kylian Mbappe of France (Photo by Michael Regan – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)

The athletic advantage France’s midfield hold over Croatia’s can be made up for by Modrić and Rakitić’s guile and technique. Where Croatia have a clear advantage is on the left flank, and Ivan Perišić will hope to terrorise France right-back Benjamin Pavard in the same way Eden Hazard did in the first half of the semi-final for Belgium. 

Perišić isn’t as dangerous a winger as Hazard is, but both have a frightening ability to throw out violent lateral swerves while dribbling, sending backtracking defenders lurching this way and that. Perišić is also a vigorous runner, who can burst past or through limp tacklers; Pavard only barely survived Hazard’s offensive in the semi-final – Hazard crafted three shooting chances cutting inside from the left, two of which were goal-bound and needed to be deflected away, first by Raphael Varane, and then Hugo Lloris. 

Mandžukić will struggle to impose himself physically on Varane or Samuel Umtiti, who are both excellent, brawny defenders. Although the predicted fatigue never set in against England – at least not to a deathly degree – one wonders exactly how much the Croatian team have left in the tank. They’ve played an hour and a half more football than France during the knockout stages, not including the time it took to win two gruelling penalty shootouts.

France are lavishly stocked with pace and power, and Paul Pogba and Blaise Matuidi will provide more than enough leggy dynamism. N’Golo Kanté will surely, as always, be practically omnipresent, tackling and harassing both of Croatia’s key deep-lying creators. No other midfielder in the world can rival Modrić’s offensive anticipation, movement, and execution, but the exact same thing could be said about Kanté defensively. 

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We’ve seen – not least against Australia in their opening group game – that France can get a little stumped by a defensive team, one that doesn’t play directly to their counter-attacking strengths. Croatia, when they play in their natural way, do not really resemble this sort of team. 

Still, the match-up gives both teams reason to believe they can exploit a weakness, even to the point of balancing out. While, as mentioned, Perišić might target Pavard, Mbappé will certainly be keen to test Croatia’s right-back Šime Vrsaljko, who was mooted to have been injured leading up to the England game, and whose aching limbs can’t have been helped by that extra 30 minutes. Ivan Strinić is a doubt for Croatia too, having limped off in the semi.

Prophesying, when the stakes are this high and the atmosphere this thick with excitement, might simply be foolish, a doodle to pass the time before the whistle blows. The World Cup final can heal the lame, drive the stoic mad, and spark rare new kinds of wonder. It’s up to the neutral observer to pick their side – for different reasons, both teams seem irresistible. Football, in all its majesty, will crown a sovereign tonight.