The Croatia World Cup final vs. France is definitely something historic for the Balkan country.
Not many countries have had the honor of reaching that stage.
This has all the more merit considering how young the country is — Croatia was formed as a nation state in 1991 after the dissolution of Yugoslavia.
The 2018 World Cup finishes this Sunday, with the final being contested by Croatia and France. Cue the sad violin music, because no one wants this month-long festival of soccer to come to a conclusion.
But alas, all good things must eventually come to and end. This World Cup has reminded everyone about the joys of the game, and why waiting four years for each World Cup is absolutely worth it.
We’re down to the final two. Well, technically still four because there's the game that everyone is dying to watch: the third place playoff! We’re just kidding, because that'll probably be another 90-minute rerun of the group stage match with both teams shoving out their B teams.
The application of VAR has contributed to officials awarding a record number of penalty kicks during the 2018 World Cup. The 28 penalty kicks awarded thus far shattered the previous record of 18. In addition to identifying fouls in the box, VAR could be used to improve penalty kick rules by making them more nuanced.
If you thought Team Cavani vs. Team Neymar was one helluva little squabble, just wait until you see Juventus players standing over a free kick this season!
We’re down to the last four teams at the World Cup: France, Belgium, Croatia and England. Who on earth would have thought that these would be the last teams standing? But we’re not complaining. It’s been a World Cup full of surprises and there's definitely room for more. I mean, England won a penalty shootout.
As always, we’ve picked our best lineup from the top performers in the quarterfinals. A 4-4-2 formation is how the team looks again.
Every four years the World Cup comes around and presents some of the best athletes from the world of soccer. From incredible passes to mind-boggling goals, the tournament is the largest sporting competition in the world, drawing the largest television audiences ever recorded.
It’s coming home. At least that’s what just about every English person is saying right now. Laugh at them if you want, but based off how this England side is playing right now, it might actually be coming home.
Many fans would associate England with being one of the most underwhelming sides on the international stage. In terms of World Cup performance, England made the quarterfinals in 2006, followed that up with a Round of 16 finish in 2010 and then in 2014, they failed to make it out of the group stage.
England finished off the Round of 16 Tuesday with a win over Colombia on penalties. It led me to think that we may be living in a parallel universe if England won a knockout game via a shootout, but no one is complaining — expect for Radamel Falcao and Jose Pekerman.
This has been one of the hardest lineups to make, simply because there were plenty of outstanding performances.
Without further ado, here's the best XI from the Round of 16. As always, a simple 4-4-2 formation is the go for us.