Whenever there is a final to be played, you play spot the difference between the teams, and the one that stands out most between these two is that France are a product of their coach and Croatia of their players. That’s about the personality of their managers, of course, but it’s also about the squads’ maturity and even their sporting education, where they have come from.
The French players are sons of an academy that has spent many years prioritising technical qualities contained within perfect physical packaging. The national team has a blend and variety of players with the likes of Samuel Umtiti, Paul Pogba, Antoine Griezmann, N’Golo Kanté and Kylian Mbappé – all picture-postcard players, technically gifted and enjoying international prestige.
Although they are all individuals, different from each other, none is out of place in the team because the coach does not allow anyone to break the structure, and endeavour is non-negotiable. Didier Deschamps is fanatical about order, one of those coaches who sees no reason why a player shouldn’t spend 90 minutes running. All of which brings to mind an anecdote that underlines the passion for effort that gets bigger by the day. One time, the Colombian coach Francisco Maturana told the Argentinian César Luis Menotti that Carlos Valderrama had spent much of the game walking, to which Menotti replied: “He’ll be thinking.” I mentioned that to a friend, a coach I stumbled across in Russia, and his response was as expected: “Those were different times.” I can only deduce that thinking has become old-fashioned. Or, more accurately, that the only person allowed to think is the coach.
A simple example of how effort enjoys the most elevated status within the French model: they started with Ousmane Dembélé – agile, skilful with both feet, but a little erratic, like any young talent – and ended with Olivier Giroud, who still has not scored, but who fulfils the first of Deschamps’ 10 sacred commandments: he chases everything that moves. Good organisation, a huge work rate and physical commitment, and an ability to make the most of set plays came together to give France a competitiveness that filled them with confidence. They are the best exponent of a pragmatic tendency that has emerged in Russia. The only doubt now is how they digest being favourites for the final.
Croatia are different. They are sportsmen who play football and that provides a different outlook, as if their education allows them to look beyond the game. There is also a nationalistic passion with them – growing up through war impacts deeply – that appears to carry them to seemingly impossible physical feats. They are this World Cup’s proof that the brain can do incredible things with the body. If a team is a state of mind, an emotional state, they are the perfect example.
Against Russia and England they gave the impression that they were a tired team at first, heavy-legged and lacking reflexes, but they drew upon that reservoir of pride inside every Croatian and their bravery appeared to grow as the game went on. They emerged from the three periods of extra time emaciated and spent, as if they had somehow survived a shipwreck. Luka Modric, for example, left the pitch after the England game looking like a tortured soul. But don’t worry: he’s one of those players who, in order to recharge, needs only to be plugged into the ball. The ball, meanwhile, is delighted to be connected to the wisest player at the tournament.
Yet it’s not effort that brought them here, or at least not only. These guys take half an hour to understand the game and then they begin to take it where they want with a collective intelligence built upon an understanding of a game that’s not a science but which, like all trades, is full of secrets. They do not appear to have the organisation of an army following orders handed down from a distance by a general. Instead, they tune into the game with their own instinct, seeking to understand it first and take control of it next. They’re an old team in that sense, one in which the players … think! And, as further proof of their intelligence, no one takes liberties, no one tries anything their ability does not allow. That’s an important point because if it’s a sin to deny freedom to a man with abundant talent, it’s a risk to give freedom to a man with none.
When it comes to energy, strength, France are a fearful team that make order, discipline and pragmatism count, that use their arms efficiently. Their games are not particularly enjoyable for the neutral observer, but they are even less enjoyable for their opponents. However, there is a different type of energy – a creative energy – that means Croatia have a chance. A team that will know how to await its moment, seeking the weaknesses that favourites invariably have to score the kind of goal that always turns a game upside down psychologically. In short, France to win through an ability to overwhelm physically and calculate tactically, or Croatia to win through psychological refinery and footballing intelligence.