France win 4-2 thriller against Croatia to lift World Cup after 20 years

Deschamps, who captained the 1998 French side, became the third man to achieve the rare distinction of winning the cup both as player and coach

Croatia vs France final full-time report: It rained in Moscow today. First it was the goals, then the tears, and then the clouds opened and let down the rain, beneath it were a jumping, joyous bunch of Frenchmen who had just won the Fifa World Cup 2018, their second in history. They danced and ran around the ground, waving the French flag. Not that they needed any help but the loudspeakers at the Luzhniki Stadium were on full blast, the tune — Hans Zimmer’s theme for Pirates of the Caribbean. There was another bunch, who were staring into the oblivion. The men in chequered jerseys — the reds and whites. The Hans Zimmer music, the roaring fans, the drizzling, none of that mattered. Just like that, Croatia’s captain Luka Modric had tears in his eyes.

You need a little bit of luck to win the World Cup. France had that in a good measure in Moscow on Sunday as they beat Croatia 4-2 to win their second-ever World Cup trophy. In a match otherwise evenly poised, it was an own-goal by Mario Mandzukic and a penalty that gave France an upper hand who sealed the match with two wonderful second-half strikes by Paul Pogba and Kylian Mbappe. Ivan Perisic and Mandzukic scored for Croatia, but that proved to be insufficient in a high-scoring match, where the number of goals was highest since 1966, when England won 4-2 after extra time. France maybe deserve this title, but Croatia will also be well within their rights to complain that the luck was hard on them.

Les Bleus got a lucky start after Mario Mandzukic scored an own goal early in the first half. Eighteenth minute, to be precise. Antoine Griezmann won a free-kick about 30 yards from goal. Griezmann’s delivery into the box was met by Manzdzukic who rose the highest to get an unfortunate touch that ended up inside his own net. The goal came against the run of play as the Croats had dominated the proceedings in the starting minutes, so much so that France’s goal was their first shot on goal.(Article source : BS)

Fifa World Cup 2018: Today's match schedule, live streaming for Sunday

Today's matches are Costa Rica vs Serbia, Germany vs Mexico and Brazil vs Switzerland

 

 

The Fifa World Cup 2018 has started with a bang in Russia. The football feast sees the biggies Brazil Football Team and German National team playing.

 

Here's the matchday schedule list:

 

1st match: Costa Rica and Serbia.

When and where to watch:

Time: 530 PM

FIFA World Cup 2018 Costa Rica vs Serbia match will take place on Sunday, June 17, 2018 at 5.30 PM

Costa Rica vs Serbia will be broadcast on Sony Ten 2, Sony Ten 2 HD, Sony ESPN, Sony ESPN HD in English Commentary and Sony Ten 3 and Sony 3 HD in Hindi Commentary.

Serbia vs Costa Rica match will be available for live streaming on Sony Liv. And Both Airtel and Jio would broadcast the FIFA World Cup 2018 matches for free to their respective subscribers

2nd match: Germany and Mexico

When and where to watch:

Time: 530 PM

FIFA World Cup 2018 Germany vs Mexico match will take place on Sunday, June 17, 2018 at 8.30 PM

Costa Rica vs Serbia will be broadcast on Sony Ten 2, Sony Ten 2 HD, Sony ESPN, Sony ESPN HD in English Commentary and Sony Ten 3 and Sony 3 HD in Hindi Commentary.

Germany vs Mexico match will be available for live streaming on Sony Liv. And Both Airtel and Jio would broadcast the FIFA World Cup 2018 matches for free to their respective subscribers

3rd Match: Brazil and Switzerland

When and where to watch:

Time: 1130 PM

FIFA World Cup 2018 Brazil vs Switzerland match will take place on Sunday, June 17, 2018 at 11.30 PM

Brazil vs Switzerland will be broadcast on Sony Ten 2, Sony Ten 2 HD, Sony ESPN, Sony ESPN HD in English Commentary and Sony Ten 3 and Sony 3 HD in Hindi Commentary.

Brazil vs Switzerland match will be available for live streaming on Sony Liv. And Both Airtel and Jio would broadcast the FIFA World Cup 2018 matches for free to their respective

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Fifa World Cup 2018: Resilient Switzerland frustrate Brazil in 1-1 draw

Tonight's draw is a cracking result for Switzerland and will give them a huge confidence boost as they try to qualify for the knockout stages whereas Brazil needs to sort out its defence

 

Brazil failed to take home three match points as they settle for a draw from a bruising encounter with Switzerland. In a night not so great for the footballing giants, the Alps nation showed nerves of steel and succeeded in stopping a star-studded side to a 1-1 draw. The credits of the night should go to Petkovic’s men, as they managed to come back from a goal deficit to secure a well-deserved match point.

The Group E encounter was scattered with a host of physical challenges as Switzerland displayed some gritty defending against the 5-time World Champions. Neymar alone was fouled 10 times (the highest number of fouls against a player in World Cup since 1998) with veteran midfielder Behrami ona charge of bottling the PSG star.

Trivia: The last player to be fouled more in a WorldCup game than Neymar v Switzerland (10) was Alan Shearer in 1998 (11 v Tunisia).

The first half of Brazil vs Switzerland match was a game that moved from box-to-box. The alpine nation’s defence was giving a hard time to the star studded Brazil squad. Although both the sides had equal ball possession the Latin Americans seemed to have the better of the Swiss side, as Neymar & Co managed to dominate the flow with Petkovic’s men looking for counter-attacking chances.

Coutinho opened the deadlock on the 20th minute with his sensational goal. After collecting possession from a rebound, the former Liverpool man opened up his body and curled the ball into the far corner of the Switzerland goal. Sommer had no chance to save the ball from going into the net off the side post. The breathtaking strike lit up the newly built Rostov Arena and seemed it was Brazil’s day after all!

Unsurprisingly, a determined Switzerland came back in the second half under the leadership of the new Arsenal man Lichtsteiner, who made the Brazillian attack toothless.

The attacking trio of Neymar, Jesus and Coutinho struggled a lot to get it past the attacking third. Switzerland was making in ways to the Brazil defence with counter-attacks. One such counter-attacks resulted into a corner and an unmarked Steven Zuber scored from the corner at 49 minute

Brazil's no. 3 Miranda left the Swiss Winger unmarked who put the ball into the back of the net. The Brazilian players alleged that their was a push by Zuber but the referee righteously played down their allegations.

The Latin American defence fell like a house of cards as they conceded the 11th goal Brazil in their last three World Cup matches. It's a record that won't improve with the kind of sloppy marking that allowed Steven Zuber to sneak in unmarked for that simple headed finish.

Tite's men had enough opportunities towards the end of the game. A fine downward header was parried clear by Sommer as Brazil frantically chased a late winner. The Swiss defence and the Switzerland goalkeeper made sure that the score stays level as they staged for another upset at Rostov Arena.

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FIFA World Cup 2018: Why prosperous nations are more likely to play and win

The more a country and its society give liberty to its people to make choices for their lives, the more likely it is to be a World Cup winner

 

More than a seventh of humanity watched the 2014 final, where Germany became the champions with a lone goal in the extra time. Unarguably, this makes the 2018 World Cup the most to-be-watched sport tournament, and a question that becomes central to discussion in the office, over tea or lunch, and at parties, is this: Who will win this time?

Juxtaposing the general development and economic progress of a country with its perceived chances of winning reveals that the probable semi-finalist teams would be the countries with better social and economic indicators. The world’s top betting players such as Ladbrokes, WilliamHill and 888sport have almost unanimously put Germany, Brazil, France, Spain and Argentina as top five, while Tunisia, Iran, Panama, South Korea and Saudi Arabia as the bottom five.

Income, represented by gross national income per capita; health, represented by life expectancy at birth; and freedom to make one’s choices, represented by an index published in the World Happiness Report are the development indicators used. Though the oil-rich kingdom of Saudi Arabia has the highest per capita income among the 10, the top-five probables have better incomes (see Chart 1) than the least popular teams. It also turns out that the healthier the country, the better is its chance of winning (see Chart 2).

The more a country and its society give liberty to its people to make choices for their lives, the more likely it is to be a World Cup winner. It must be noted that all these are correlations and not causal relations.

Interestingly, only two of the 32 teams that are playing the finals are low human development countries, while a majority, 18, are highly developed (see Chart 4). The top-five probable winners are richer and developed than the average of the tournament’s 32 nations, which, in turn, are more prosperous than the global average. India, however, has a long way to go (see Charts 5).

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Fifa World Cup 2018 Uruguay vs Egypt: When and where to watch the match

Brace for real action as Egypt and Uruguay clash in what could be a treat for football lovers

The Fifa World Cup 2018 kicked off in an impressive way at Moscow's Luzhniki stadium in Russia. Hosts Russia overcame their recent poor run to score five goals against Saudi Arabia in the tournament opener. This was Russia's biggest win since 1934. The electrifying opener is seen as a trailer of the excitement we can expect from the tournament.

Egypt vs Uruguay: The second game of the tournament is set to bring some real action. The South American heavyweight, Uruguay has strikers like Edinson Cavani and Luis Suarez, while the Pharaohs have Mohamed Salah. Mo Salah turns 26 today and fans are expecting a gift of appearence from Mo Salah. Both Uruguay and Egypt will aim to get their campaign off to a good start when they meet in a Group A clash at Russia's Ekaterinburg Arena on Friday. A positive result will mean a lot to Egypt as this will be the team's first FIFA World Cup 2018  appearance in 28 years.

The biggest cause for Egypt's concern has been the form of star forward Mohammed Salah. The onus will be on coach Hector Cúper if he decides to play him.

Salah had injured his shoulder while representing Liverpool in the Champions League final against Real Madrid, which had thrown his World Cup participation into jeopardy.

Going by the quality and World Cup pedigree of the two teams, Egypt are expected to face a tough battle when they step out for their first World Cup match since 1990.

On the other hand, two-time champions Uruguay will appear in their third consecutive World Cup. They were impressive at the 2010 World Cup, where they finished fourth. That was the first time they had reached the quarter-finals since the 1970 edition.

Uruguay played some good football at the 2014 World Cup, though they were eliminated in the second round after a 0-2 loss to fellow South Americans Colombia, Before that, Uruguay had created a splash during the group stages with back-to-back wins over England and Italy.

Importantly, this will be the third consecutive World Cup appearance for Uruguay's star players like Luis Suarez, Edinson Cavani and Diego Godin. That experience should hold the team in good stead..

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Here's how to watch Fifa World Cup 2018 for free in mobile devices

Both Airtel and Jio would broadcast the FIFA World Cup 2018 matches for free to their respective subscribers

 

Fifa World Cup 2018 is about to begin in a few hours from now in Russia, where 32 teams from across the globe would play around 50 matches in a span of one month. The much-awaited football event would attract fans from across countries to watch the action live, either from the stadium or from home. However, it would be a dream come true if the matches could be watched live even on the go.

For Indian fans, that dream has just come true, as telecom operators Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio have announced free broadcast of 2018 Fifa World Cup matches on their respective mobile television apps.

Here is how to catch the live action on mobile devices

Airtel TV

Bharti Airtel has rolled out an updated Airtel TV app, which would enable users to watch live broadcasts of the upcoming football tournament. Interestingly, the matches will be broadcast in various regional languages in addition to Hindi and English.

Airtel TV users will also have access to match schedules and other updates related to the game, such as exclusive behind-the-scenes match snippets along with match previews or reviews.

The updated app will be available on both the Android and iOS platforms over coming days.

“At Airtel TV, we are driven by the constant desire to offer best content experience to our customers with high relevance value. While T20 cricket tournament received great feedback from our users, we are confident of recreating the same magic with the upcoming football extravaganza as well. We are delighted that the Airtel TV app is fast becoming the go to destination for sports lovers in India,” said Sameer Batra, CEO-Content and Apps, Bharti Airtel.

Reliance JioTV

Reliance Jio also announced that the company would broadcast live Fifa 2018 matches on its mobile television app, JioTV. According to the statement, JioTV will live broadcast Fifa World Cup between June 14 to July 15. Alongside, JioTV users can also watch the upcoming India-Afghanistan Test Match between June 14 and June 18.

Both Airtel and Jio would broadcast the content for free to their respective subscribers.

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Fifa World Cup 2018: Goldman's AI forecast predicts sixth win for Brazil

Unsurprisingly, Brazil and Germany are the teams appearing most often in World up 2018 forecast models produced by economists

 

So much for the unpredictable nature of the beautiful game. Goldman Sachs Group Inc reckons Brazil will win its sixth World Cup, basing its forecast on data mining, machine learning and econometrics.

The investment bank is the latest to jump into the excitement before the soccer championship kicks off this week. It used 200,000 statistical models, sifted data on individual players and recent team performance and ran 1 million simulations of the tournament.

As a result, it predicts that Brazil will lift the trophy on July 15. We should note that Goldman also tipped Brazil in 2014 (forecasting a 3-1 win over Argentina in the final). But Brazil stumbled in the semi-final back then, losing by a whopping 7-1 to eventual champions Germany.

Here’s the Goldman explanation in more detail:

“We feed data on team characteristics, individual players and recent team performance into four different types of machine learning models to analyze the number of goals scored in each match. The models then learn the relationship between these characteristics and goals scored, using the scores of competitive World Cup and European Cup matches since 2005. By cycling through alternative combinations of variables, we get a sense of which characteristics matter for success and which stay on the bench. We then use the model to predict the number of goals scored in each possible encounter of the tournament and use the unrounded score to determine the winner.”

- Goldman Sachs, June 2018.

Unsurprisingly, Brazil and Germany are the teams appearing most often in forecast models produced by economists. Danske Bank also picked Brazil in its preview, which would give the South American team a record six titles, while Commerzbank sees Germany lifting its fifth.

According to Goldman analysts, France has a slightly better chance of winning the event than Germany, but their model has it meeting Brazil in the semi-finals, with its campaign ending there.

Like Goldman, both used a combination of variables and ran simulations to forecast the winner, though Danske also factored in economic variables such as GDP per capita.

Swiss bank UBS also gives it to Germany, while a study by the University of Innsbruck says Germany and Brazil will compete in the final, though it gives the latter the edge.

The tournament takes place in Russia, but Goldman doesn’t see the host nation getting out of the group stages. That tallies with the view of Commerzbank, which argued that the home advantage isn’t what it once was.

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