What a shame... England vs. France would have been epic. I don't care much for France or Croatia. A disappointing final for me.
I admit I wanted to see Belgium in the finals, but the French are young and play nice football, and Croatia has an experienced team and fought well, so I am looking forward to see how those two different teams fare facing each other. Both deserve to be there. My money is on my neighbors from France though.
I think it was largely more to our weakness than Croatia's strength - we were getting too lax and complacent after that first goal I feel, they kept letting the Croatians in and it was arguably only going to be a matter of time before they got a goal in. Our keeper was amazing but he just kept getting worn down - I can understand his frustration at the team as they kept kicking the ball back to him rather than being more aggressive and countering the Croatians. Then in the second half after the Croatians got that first goal we started going back to the Rooney team of 2014, just kicking the ball around in triangles and never getting it up front and putting the pressure on them - we simply lost our morale I think. In the first half after that first goal Kane had a couple of great shots and almost got a couple more in but sadly it just wasn't to be - if those other shots had just gone a little to the left or so we would have beaten them 2-1 or 3-1, but our lads just got too complacent after that first goal. Even though I was thoroughly frustrated at that Croatian first goal, I have to admit we have done much better than the previous couple of World Cups and maybe if the same team keeps practicing playing the way they did against Sweden, which was probably their best performance, then they may well do even better.
Yeah, I believe everyone (except french) wanted to see Belgium in the final. Now i will root for Croatia, for a certain number of reasons: - i like their playstyle - i am a fan of Modric - Perisic and Brozovic play for my favorite italian team
Congratulations to France for winning the World Cup! Great game by Croatia as well. They fought well and earned their place in history. Best result ever for Croatia, they can be proud. The only things leaving a sour taste are the penalty (I wouldn't have given that, for me it clearly wasn't intentional playing with the hand) and the dive by Griezmann that led to the first goal.
All in all, it has been a lame World cup. Let's be honest… we saw some good play (Belgium, Croatia), but when the big teams fail, the competition loses some of its charme.
I was also a bit disappointed. I liked how the English were back and France, Belgium and Croatia were highlights, but all the others to me felt like they were...just not "world cup level" I guess.
I would disagree. It has widely been considered to be a pretty exciting and interesting World Cup. Lots of great goals scored, exciting upsets and great story lines. I would have liked to have seen a few other teams progress further, but the quality of the action was great in my opinion.
I think one of the main reason for disappointment is that the mega stars and favourite teams played mediocre. Not saying that the games were bad, but for me there was something missing.
I'm not saying games weren't fun, of that quality wasn't good. I'm saying that the charm of the Word Cup is also to see the Great teams facing each other. Brazil-Germany is a classic, Belgium-France a lot less… I can concede that it was pretty interesting, exactly because we saw unusual top teams, but it's undeniable that the lack of classic matches it's also a pity. To quote yourself:
Undoubtedly I wanted to see a different match up in the final, but the game itself turned out really great. The Argentina vs. Germany final of the last World Cup was on paper far better than France vs. Croatia, but in actual game terms, the France v Croatia contest was far more exciting. England vs. France would have been fun for historical reasons... such an intense rivalry between the countries (outside of football) I wanted nothing more than for Messi to finally win one, but at the end of the day they didn't deserve it. Let the best team win.