Quote Originally Posted by Özim View Post
Don't really agree with this, Croatia did well in the first half, penalty for me was a tough one could have gone either way, he seemed to stick out his hand, but then it was also close. 2nd half France controlled it and had 2-3 more opportunities they should have scored, Croatia only scored through luck when Loris made a mess of it when France were cruising.

Best side (on the day and in terms of quality) won, I agree with MO their side of the draw was easy no big teams at all in the knockouts, that's unheard of in the World Cup, in all honesty they laboured through that side of the draw, even England could have beaten them if they'd put their chances away in the 1st half when they were on top.

They did well and all that but no doubt the better team won on the day, more quality, more goal threat, more chances.
"more quality" - maybe on overall quality of the side, but take out Mbappe and Croatia's players weren't far off - not just Modric but Strinic, Rakitic, and many others really stepped up though i would admit they wasted some chances

"more goal threat" - no, not until they went 2-1 up thanks to the ref and they could then pick off Croatia on the break

"more chances" - ditto the above

anyway if England had pubbed their way to the title most of you would have said 'we deserved to win, we won through on the day' even though France woudl have been far the better team, so why is it that when it's Croatia that doesn't count for anything and it's all 'oh well France is the better team so that's that'?

Tell you what, why bother holding a tournament, why not just get a panel to assess the quality of each player in every squad and award the trophy to the one that's most highly rated????