MOSCOW (AFP) – France fine-tuned their preparations for the World Cup final against Croatia on Friday, desperate to overcome the bitter disappointment of losing the Euro 2016 final as FIFA declared Russia 2018 the best-ever tournament.
Didier Deschamps’ team are firm favourites to win Sunday’s showpiece in Moscow and become world champions for the second time – 20 years after their first triumph in 1998.
But they will come up against a hungry Croatia side boasting one of the players of the tournament in Real Madrid star Luka Modric, who is desperate to win the trophy for the nation of just over four million people.
France made a slow start to their World Cup bid but they have gone up through the gears during the knockout rounds and look a formidable blend of youthful vitality and experience.
They will approach the match at Moscow’s 80,000-capacity Luzhniki Stadium full of confidence and with the pain of losing the final of Euro 2016 on home soil to Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal spurring them on.
“The tears have dried from Euro 2016 but it’s still there in a little corner of people’s minds,” midfielder Blaise Matuidi said on Friday.
“It will be useful for us on Sunday, even if I don’t like to keep bringing up the past. It will serve as a lesson to us and it means we know what it is to play in a final.”
”We’ll approach it differently and hope that we play really well and win it. It’s up to us to put everything into place to achieve our dream of lifting the World Cup.”
Deschamps’ team are packed with attacking stars such as Kylian Mbappe and Antoine Griezmann but it is their defence that has shone in the past two rounds, not conceding a single goal.
Croatia – the smallest nation to make it to the final since Uruguay in 1950 – has battled through three periods of extra-time to reach the final. That means they have played the equivalent of a whole extra match more than France.
But coach Zlatko Dalic said there would be no excuses despite their exertions.
Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic said she could not wait until the game.
”I feel extremely excited, I don’t know how I will wait until Sunday,” said Grabar-Kitarovic, who is going to attend the game. ”Regardless of Sunday’s result, which I believe will be a victory, we are winners.”
BEST WORLD CUP EVER
As the tournament moves towards its end, FIFA president Gianni Infantino declared it the best ever.
“I was saying this would be the best World Cup ever. Today I can say it with more conviction… it is the best World Cup,” Infantino said in Moscow.
More than one million foreign fans have visited Russia during the World Cup, according to FIFA figures.
“A lot of pre-conceived ideas have changed thanks to this World Cup,” said Infantino.
”Everyone has discovered a beautiful country, a welcoming country, full of people keen to show to the world what maybe sometimes is said is not what happens here.”
