Ten talking points from the 2018 FIFA World Cup Final

The 2018 FIFA World Cup has come and ever so quickly gone, with a memorable final topping off a memorable event, and leaving with us multiple talking points to come from the World Cup Final.

Thank You Russia
Ultimately, there was a fair amount of apprehension leading into the tournament about just what type of world cup we were going to get.

Baring in mind the questionable circumstances around which this world cup was awarded to Russia, and whether or not they would have the stadia and infra structure to put the tournament on, there was a sense that the 2018 edition would be something of a fizzer.

Those concerns could be laid to rest fairly early on in the piece, with exciting football, great atmosphere, and to top it all off, a finale that was full of all the excitement and pomp that such an occasion deserved.

The Moscow stadium was flush with vibrant colour and a raucous crowd, as the players took to the field in a manner fit for any marquee event.

It was a truly fitting end to an overall memorable event.

Just do it
It was something of a victory of sorts before the whistle was even blown for kit sponsor Nike that both finalists were kitted out with their products.

20 years ago, when France lifted the trophy in Paris, it was a story of Adidas (les bleus) versus Nike (jogo bonito) in the playing jerseys of France and Brazil.

No such showdown took place here, and noting that only one semi finalist wore Adidas sponsored kits (Belgium) in this world cup, Nike were always going to be represented in the final match of the event.

Taking into account that Adidas is the official sponsor of FIFA, it would have been very satisfying for the US-based sports giant to have both finalists wearing the Nike tick of approval on their chests.

And for an event that is watched by billions around the world, it would have done the coffers of Nike no small favour on the biggest football day to come around every four years.

Fire and ice
So France were indeed the team that was going to be the calm ones under pressure, having barely exerted themselves in the tournament so far to reach the final match.

The ice-cold blood pumping through the French veins had seen them calmly work their way through an easily navigated group phase and with minimum risk during the knockout stages.

Croatia, on the other hand, came into this match with three extra time matches under their belts, and should have been exhausted when the first whistle blew, let alone the last.

However, it was Croatia that came out with fire in their bellies, as not only did they take the match to the French, but controlled the first half, and had les bleus chasing shadows for large portions of the game.

If Croatia were nervous in their first world cup final, or tired from a long tournament that had demanded every physical and emotional exertion that the Croatian players could offer, it did not show.

Instead, Croatia came out firing, and put to bed any doubt that they did not belong on the world cup final stage.

To be sure, so hot were Croatia in that first half, and so dominant were they, surely they must have been wondering at half-time how in fact they were not leading, let alone behind.

(Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

Goals!
This century, in four world cup finals so far, we had seen only four goals scored during the regulation 90 minutes. In the first half alone, France and Croatia produced three.

World Cup finals are generally cagey affairs. Teams, after all, are playing for the cup, so to err on the side of caution, while understandable and entirely justifiable, can sometimes be less than spectacular events to witness.

However, here, Croatia and France produced goals, six of them in all, to keep the contest moving along and the interest levels high.

And you could argue that France were lucky to get the first two of theirs (a dodgy free kick and a VAR-inspired penalty), but the equalizer by Croatia was all class, a five touch set piece that was finished off by a Perisic bullet into the back of the net. The finishes of Paul Pogba and Kylian Mbappe were all class.

In fact, it was the semi final heroes for Croatia who were again on the scoresheet for the Croatians, just not as they would have entirely both liked, with Mario Mandzukic the unlucky finisher of the own goal that gave France the first lead of the game.

For all the wonder and splendor of the world game, the passing, the movement, the tackling, and the tactics, at the end of the day, the result is decided by goals. It was thrilling to see so many of them scored in the biggest game the sport has to offer.

VAR
And so we have a VAR-officiated world cup final goal, France on this occasion being the recipient of the historic first event.

Now, for starters, the sky didn’t fall down, the world didn’t end, and the fabric of space-time continuum did not tear asunder.

As French players crowded the Argentinian referee off a corner in in the 38th minute, and the referee touched his ear, the game as we know it was changing.

So let the debate begin: was it a penalty? Maybe? Possibly? Probably? Ultimately, with it being awarded by the referee, it was indeed a penalty.

Of course, I prefer to go with the Alan Shearer perspective when it comes to VAR, in that the VAR is best used to determine issues of fact, not topics of opinion, and in most cases, handballs are a question of opinion.

Australia were very happy recipients of VAR intervention when it came to awarding handball penalties in this world cup, but once again, the question is more about the process than the outcome.

Is football, as a sport, ready and willing to become a sport that will now undergo lengthy delays so as to get the decision right?

Martin Tyler commented, quite rightly, at the time that if the referee had to watch so many replays, with so many slow motion versions, then surely there was enough doubt there to wave play on, and not award a penalty.

Indeed.

Instead, Nestor Pitana watched as many replays as he could, as often as he liked, and eventually, pointed to the spot. It would ultimately give France the lead in the world cup final that they would not relinquish.

And here’s the thing: was the lengthy delay, from an objective stand point, worth the outcome? The VAR awarded penalty ultimately decided the outcome of this match, as France took a lead that they never relinquished, and as such, the VAR made the biggest decision in the match that invariably decided the winner of the world cup.

(Photo by Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)

Pog-Boom
If the first half belonged to Croatia, the second half belonged to France, but the difference was that in each half, France managed to capitalize, and perhaps the player that gave France the decisive and killer lead, was Paul Pogba.

You have to feel for Pogba sometimes.

The unlikely recipient of having the tag of most expensive player never sat well with the Frenchman of Guinean heritage, who was always a skillful player, but not quite of the caliber and type that warranted a financial price tag that placed unnecessary pressure on him.

But with his 59th minute strike essentially sealing the world cup trophy for his nation, the satisfaction that he should have felt would also have been a combination of exaltation, joy, and perhaps sheer relief.

A player whose quality, commitment, and performance has always been the topic of hot conversation and debate, was tonight a world cup winning player with a world cup goal to boot.

It was entirely the type of goal that Paul Pogba deserved.

Mbappe delivers
And if Paul Pogba finally delivered, Kylian Mbappe reminded all and sundry that he remains the present and the long future of football.

Having superseded Paul Pogba as the most expensive French player on the planet (Neymar had shortly prior taken the mantel as the most expensive player from anywhere), Mbappe scored with the type of long-range effort that leaves keepers rooted to the spot, and viewers on the edge of their seats.

Mbappe had a quiet first half, though he was not alone for France in that regard. But when he finished from outside the area with a devastating strike off the end of yet another ice cold French counter-attack, he had surely signed, sealed, and delivered another world cup title to France.

While his previous two goals in a world cup had come in a single match against Argentina that had comparisons to Pele flying around, his strike in the 65th minute provided Mbappe with the Pele comparison he would have wanted much more: a world cup final goal scoring teenager.

(Photo by Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)

The Loris Karius Award for Goalkeeping
Hugo Lloris had a “hold my beer” moment in goal for France, as he gifted Croatia their second goal with a goalkeeping blunder that, on any other given day, might have cost himself and his nation dearly.

As Mario Mandzukic came charging towards Lloris on the ball, applying the type of regulation pressure that you would expect from a striker, Lloris, not clearing the ball as quickly as he could, instead tried to jink around the rampaging striker.

That simply does not end well.

I would imagine that the most relieved man on the planet when the ball dribbled into the back of the net was one L Karius, who has been harassed and badgered so badly online since the Champions League final that he has split from his girlfriend.

But at least now, the blunder of Karius was no longer the biggest, or merely only, goalkeeping blunder in a final for 2018 that people would immediately turn to.

Now Karius has company.

Of course, it was also lucky for Lloris that, unlike Karius, it did not cost his team the title.

Deschamps goes down in history
There are not many players that have captained and then coached their nation to a world cup victory.

In fact, now, there are only two of them.

Going into this tournament, Franz Beckenbauer of Germany had the truly elite honour of being the only man to win a world cup as a captain (1974) and coach (1990).

Didier Deschamps is now the second.

It was an entirely fitting honour for a man that has at times carried all the weight of French football on his shoulders.

While the golden generation of French football has more often than not been associated with Zinedine Zidane, an all to often overlooked aspect of that late 1990s, early 2000s group of players that won a world and continental title is that the captain of that team was Deschamps, who while not the most skillful of that group, was the man who lead that team from the front.

He was the captain that the French team needed, if not the one they necessarily deserved.

While the sting of losing the Euro 2016 final at home had hurt Deshamps and his players, there is nothing like being crowned world champion to make up for that pain.

(Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

Eight is enough
So the number of winners of the world cup remains only eight.

The world cup is now 88 years old, and during the 20th century, there had only been seven winners.

It is fitting that the most elite triumph you can achieve in the game has a membership of only elite company. World cups do not come around very often, and it is hard enough just to qualify for the tournament, let alone win one.

Just ask Australia.

While all credit must be given to Croatia for making the final, and taking it to France, at the end of the day, France showed Croatia that the winners of the world cup are an elite company, and if you want to join that company, not only must you bring your best, but a lot must go your way in order to become a winner.

And so, as we look to Qatar in four years, with a 48-team competition anticipated, it is worth remembering that more isn’t always better, because in some ways, it is the exclusive nature of the FIFA World Cup, both in the final tournament participants and its winners, that makes the FIFA World Cup the near mythical and splendid tournament that it is.