World Cup Final 2018 Preview: Fresh France good value to secure World Cup victory against Croatia

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Match Result (90-minutes) – France to Win @ 19/20 (1.95) at bet365*

The World Cup Final 2018 takes place at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow on Sunday afternoon, with France and Croatia battling it out to be crowned world champions.

France go into the final as warm favourites to secure a second World Cup in their history, having won on home soil in 1998.  For Croatia, this will be their first appearance in a major final, although they finished in 3rd place at that same 1998 World Cup in France, where they lost 2-1 to the host nation at the semi-final stage.

Theoretically, France will go into this game by far the fresher team.  Not only will they have had a day’s additional rest, but they should benefit from having come through each of their three games in the knockout stage in 90-minutes, having beaten Argentina (4-3), Uruguay (2-0) and Belgium (1-0).

By contrast, Croatia have effectively played an additional game in being taken to extra-time in all three of their knockout games against Denmark (1-1), Russia (2-2) and England (2-1) and had the emotional anxiety of two penalty shootouts in the first two of those matches to boot.  

What Croatia do possess is a midfield of the very highest quality in the likes of Luka Modric, Ivan Rakitic and Ivan Perisic and a squad that features many players who have played for some of Europe’s biggest club sides.  As a nation this might be new territory for Croatia, but many of these players are perfectly at home playing top level soccer.

For French coach Didier Deschamps and many of his players, this game represents an opportunity to make up for the disappointment of losing the final of Euro 2016 on home soil to Portugal.  In that game the weight of expectation in front of their own supporters appeared to get the better of them.

The Croatian defence isn’t the quickest, so the pace of Kylian Mbappe could present a serious threat and added to the aforementioned factors, makes a France victory in 90-minutes look a decent World Cup Final bet at 19/20 (1.95) with bet365*.  A Correct Score bet of 2-1 to France at 9/1 (10.00) with bet365* also looks worth an interest.

* Odds are correct at the time of writing