France Topple Croatia In Hectic, Exhausting World Cup Final

A hilariously wild and ragged World Cup final concluded with a 4-2 victory for France, after a chaotic first half marked by a pair of dumb goals for France, and a second half marked by a Pussy Riot field invasion and maybe the dumbest goal you will ever see in a World Cup Final, from Croatia.

A sweet move down the right side early in the second half from One True Wonderteen Kylian Mbappé led to some chaos in front of net, with Paul Pogba taking a couple cracks from distance, including a second one that caught Croatia keeper Danijel Subasic as flat-footed as, uhh, a marble statue that happens to have feet, which are perfectly flat:

Croatia were already in big trouble, here. They’d played very well and frustrated France’s midfield, but at no point in the knockout stages of this tournament did they look like the kind of offensive powerhouse that could explode for multiple goals in a half against a team like France. Which made what happened six minutes later seem all the more definitive:

It’s a ripped line drive from Mbappé, but also another alarmingly sluggish lurch from Subasic, and it put Croatia in the deepest of shit. But Croatia did pull one back, less than four minutes later, in an incredibly dumb and unlikely sequence, a combination of Mario Mandžukić refusing to give up on a routine play, and France keeper Hugo Lloris being a complete and utter shithead:

Under different circumstances, that’s a boner we would be talking about for generations. But Croatia never seriously threatened again, and France more or less cruised to their second World Cup title, after winning it all 20 years ago, in 1998.