France Beats Croatia 4-2 For World Cup Championship

It probably was not a good sign when Croatia’s Mario Mandzukic scored the first goal of the World Cup championship match–for France. The ball grazed off Mandzukic’s head and into his him own goal at the 18 minute mark to give France a 1-0 lead. Mandzukic had the dubious distinction of being the first to put one in his own goal in a World Cup championship.

Croatia tied it a 1-1 10 minutes later on a goal by Ivan Perisic. Ten minutes after that, Antoine Griezmann converted a controversial penalty kick to give France a 2-1 lead.

The French would not trail again. Paul Pogba and Kylian Mbappe scored second half goals for France; Mandzukic scored the final goal of the game for Croatia at 69 minutes, but that was it. France won 4-2 to claim its second World Cup 20 years after winning its first. Croatia’s unexpected run came to end.

Here’s a link to the highlights

For those of you looking way ahead to the 2022 World Cup, the tournament will be held in Qatar November 21st-December 18th of that year. But before that, it’s 2019 Women’s World Cup. The U.S. Women are the defending champions; qualifications for the tournament are not yet finished. The 2019 Women’s World Cup will be held June 7th-July 7th in France.