Classic games-France v Croatia 98

France reached the final of their home competition after a scary ride through the qualifying rounds that ended with a tight 2-1 victory over the tournament’s surprise team, Croatia.

After a 1-0 golden goal win against Paraguay and needing a penalty shootout to get past Italy, France didn’t want a close run thing in the semifinals, but after going in 0-0 at halftime the last thing they wanted to see was ace goalpoacher Davor Suker squeeze in a goal one minute after the restart.

Cometh the hour, cometh Lilian Thuram for France, hitting back almost immediately after a driving run and shot from 15 yards, his first ever goal for his country.

Just over twenty minutes later Tutu, as he’s known, did it again, battling with Jarni at the edge of the box and blasting a left foot shot past keeper Ladic into the far corner. Thuram’s played over a hundred internationals but those are the only two goals he’s scored for France.

France were on their way but they’d be going to the final without their defensive leader, Laurent Blanc, who was sent off after Slaven Bilic took a ridiculous dive that the referee bought.

Bilic wasn’t touched and you wonder how he thinks about cheating Blanc out of his place in the World Cup Final.