France for the Win!

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France celebrates after bringing home the cup.

Caroline Kwak, Staff Writter

During the summer of 2018, the FIFA World Cup took place in Russia. With an average of 47,371 attendees per game, 32 teams faced each other to win the World Cup. Each team had the goal of getting to the next round. Although Poland didn’t get far, other teams played better than expected.

 

France began their journey to the World Cup strongly with a win against Australia and Peru and tying with Denmark. They went on to eliminate Argentina in the Round of 16, then Uruguay in the Quarterfinals, along with Belgium in the Semi-finals, allowing France to reach the final round. The team they would be playing against would be Croatia. They went on to win against Croatia 4-2 in the Final to take the World Cup back to France. With goals from Antoine Griezmann, Paul Pogba, Kylian Mbappé, and an own goal by Mario Mandžukić, France was able to secure a win in the final. Without  players such as forward Antoine Griezmann, forward Kylian Mbappé, midfielder Paul Pogba, and goalkeeper Hugo Lloris France wouldn’t have played as strong to take the cup back to France for the second time in 20 years.

 

The biggest unexpected moment of the World Cup was when Germany got eliminated before the round of 16. Many thought Germany would be a team that would get to at least the Quarterfinals because they were a strong team and they won the World Cup in 2014. They first lost against Mexico 0-1, then won against Sweden 2-1, but lost to Korea Republic 2-0, taking them out of the race for the cup. After Germany and all the other teams got eliminated it was time to rest and soon get back to playing with their club.