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5 Things That Happened in Yesterday’s WC Final That’ll Be in History Books

2018-07-16 , 7:45 pm

Lest you’re unaware, the extraordinary phenomenon known only as the World Cup 2018 ended yesterday, and damn…

What a way to close the show.

France and Croatia, the two teams that have survived all trials and tribulations to arrive at the finals, waged battle against each other in a way that makes you think of mating rabbits.

Intense, heart-stopping and kinda controversial in a sense.

Indeed, the match was one to remember for many… reasons. So without further ado…

Let’s get the show back on the road.

1. Croatia got short-changed

Read the final scoreline and you might think, “Oh wow, France won easy peasy. Knew it.”

But to those who stayed throughout the match, they would know that France’s victory wasn’t so much of domination, as it was of luck.

Heck, just check out the match stats.

At first glance, you would expect the team on the right to be France. 61% possession? 12 shots to 6 shots?

Definitely France.

But like your Auntie Dim Sum told you long ago, you really should never judge a book by its cover.

Indeed, the team on the right’s actually Croatia, and they pretty much dominated the game despite trailing by two goals at the 90th-minute mark. If you woke up at 12:00 a.m. for a pee and look at the TV, chances are you’ll have seen checkered players with the ball.

Which is a real pity, but then it could’ve all been attributed to the next point.

2. Controversy will never be totally erased from the game

Lest you’re unaware, World Cup 2018 differs from its previous edition in one glaring aspect:

The Video Assistant Referee (VAR) system.

And its inclusion has been pretty helpful too, assisting referees with hard-to-make decisions and generally making the tournament a better place (anti-cheating wise).

But it seems that not even the VAR can totally erase controversy from the game, as yesterday’s final proved. In fact, you wonder whether VAR is useful or not.

In the 18th minute, Griezmann from France fell almost like Neymar, and a free kick was awarded to France without hesitation from the referee. A replay would show that Griezmann might have been tackled by air instead, but as fate would have it, a goal was scored from the free kick.

In the 33rd minute, a corner kick saw Croatia’s Ivan Perisic seemingly handle the ball with his arm. Undecided, the referee waved for a VAR, and an assistant referee, together with a team, re-watched the scene with high-tech gadgets, doing a déjà vu in a room.

The handball was pretty obvious: the question was whether it was deliberate, or ball-to-hand. You see, if you didn’t deliberately change the course of a ball with your hand, it’s not considered a foul.

But the referee decided to give France a penalty, which might be a wrong decision: after all, Perisic’s view could have been blocked so he couldn’t have deliberately hit the ball.

Then again, if you support France, it’s a clear-cut handball, like Maradona’s infamous hand of God:

(P.S. That’s soccer, not basketball. Really.)

(And that goal counted. Seriously.)

3. Pitch Invaders

If you were one of the many who watched the match yesterday, you’ll remember that somewhere in the 52nd minute, a person, or rather persons, ran onto the field.

They belonged to the feminist punk band Pussy Riot, and had ran in from the France goalposts. They posted something on Facebook immediately after that, and the reason for them in police uniform?

Well, let’s just say that it has absolutely nothing to do with football. Or VAR. We’re here for football (and handball), so let’s move on.

4. Kylian Mbappe

What were you doing when you’re 19 years old? Drinking milk?

Kylian Mbappe was – is – scoring a World Cup goal in the World Cup Final.

The 19-year-old PSG forward is the youngest French player to score at a World Cup in a match against Peru, and repeated that feat yesterday with a long shot. He’s the second player who have scored in the World Cup Final – the first being the legendary Pele.

So Home United, you might want to keep him in your radar. He’s going places and he doesn’t need to serve NS #justsaying

First Own Goal in a World Cup Final

It’s not easy to score an own goal: you need to be in the right place and at the right time. Which is why there hasn’t been an own goal in any World Cup Final match before: until yesterday.

Of course, the free-kick shouldn’t even have taken place in the first place when VAR is available, but hey: if you’ve read our previous article, we joked that Croatia is going to score an own goal.

And they did.

And we predicted that France would win.

And France won.

From tomorrow onward, we’re out of this content creation business. We’re going to be professional punters.

It’s still a beautiful game

Despite the controversies, it’s still an explosive thriller that can match any Michael Bay’s movie. After all, the number of goals is similar to an S-League – I mean, Singapore Premier League – match. Every S-League match is exciting, no?