Croatia Sends England Home, Advances to World Cup Final

British soccer (yes we know it’s called football in the rest of the world) fans are famous, or infamous, in their passion for the game, and England is the home of some great teams like Manchester United, as well as some of the best players in the world. Still, England has only been to the FIFA World Cup Championship game once, and that was in 1966, when the team won the championship. England’s next best finish was fourth in 1990. So, when England met Croatia in a 2018 semifinal in Moscow on July 11th, the fans were hungry for a victory that would send their team to the Championship for the first time in 52 years.

And it probably looked like a pretty decent shot at that championship. Since first entering the World Cup as an independent nation in 1998, when the team finished third, Croatia has finished 23rd in 2002, 22nd in 2006, did not qualify in 2010, and 19th in 2014. But this Croatian team didn’t get this far by being a bunch of slouches, and entered the game undefeated, including eliminating Denmark and host Russia on penalty shootouts.

This game was another one that went to extra time, but didn’t require a shootout, as Mario Mandzukic scored a goal in the 109th minute of play for a 2-1 Croatia victory.

Watch highlights of the game on youtube

Croatia will face France on July 15th for the championship. France advanced to the final by beating Belgium; the French team is undefeated with five wins and a draw. France is looking for its second World Cup championship; its first was in 1998 (when it also hosted the World Cup). The French finished as the runner up to Italy in 2002.

And now England will have to wait four more years for another shot. But hey, British fans, in 2022 it will be 56 years since your only championship, which is little more than half of the 108 years between Chicago Cubs World Series championships (1908-2016). So there’s that.