Human Interest

Paul Pogba led the France World Cup celebrations and showed he is an absolute party monster. Now that France is utterly overcome with joy as Les Bleus delivered a second world title in twenty years, the Manchester United man stepped up to the moment.

The whole team celebrated with president Emmanuel Macron on Monday at the Champs Elysées in Paris.

The politician gave a brief speech before he passed the microphone on to Paul Pogba, and then the real party began.

Croatia President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic is now one of the most famous people on the planet because she likes football, hugging people and is able to gleefully stand under heavy rain. Naturally, Grabar-Kitarović is also a prominent and capable politician, but it was her warmth and personal charisma that made her an instant global celebrity at the 2018 World Cup Final.

Pussy Riot, the notorious Russian punk rock activist group, staged a show of defiance during the World Cup final between France and Croatia on Sunday. Four of the group’s members, one man and three women disguised in police uniform, ran onto the pitch during the 52nd minute of the second half before being chased and dragged out by security.  

Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard won his first match as a manager on Thursday with Scotland’s Rangers FC against Macedonia’s FK Shkupi. Rangers’ Jamie Murphy and James Tavernier led a 2-0 win in the second leg of the first qualifying round for the UEFA Europa League.

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FIFA has opened an official investigation after reports of England fans’ alleged discriminatory chants during the semifinal with Croatia on July 11. The governing body of football received reports from its anti-discrimination monitoring system, which kept an eye on unruly behavior during the match in Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium.

The final day of the dramatic cave rescue operation in northern Thailand has come to a close after the final four boys and their coach were successfully freed from the Tham Luang cave complex, following on from the two previous days in which eight members of the Wild Boars soccer team had been successfully rescued by a team of elite divers.

This is, without a doubt, the most attention a T3 (third coach) has ever received before a World Cup semifinal, but you can certainly understand why: Thierry Henry, the man who appeared in 123 matches for France while scoring 51 goals, is now tasked with educating the likes of Romelu Lukaku, Eden Hazard and Dries Mertens in the art of deconstructing Les Bleus.

Immigrant players and sons of immigrants largely make up World Cup rosters. Welcoming immigration has proven to be the secret to having success at the World Cup. Out of the four teams still remaining in the tournament, France, Belgium and England feature squads composed of players from very diverse origins.

After expert divers rescued four members of the Wild Boars soccer team yesterday during a dramatic operation inside the Tham Luang cave complex in Northern Thailand, Thai navy seals confirmed that an additional four boys had been rescued Monday. A further four boys and their coach remain, but the threat of monsoon rains re-flooding the cave has been downgraded as the chance of rain over the next couple days is low, according to forecasters.

Four members of the Thailand youth soccer team that’s been trapped in the Tham Luang caves have now been rescued, but eight boys remain along with their 25-year-old coach. But why was the soccer team in the cave to begin with, and how have they spent more than two weeks inside the sprawling complex?