1998 FIFA World Cup Final penalties after Italy's Luigi Di Biagio struck his penalty onto the crossbar. In the semi-finals, France faced tournament surprise Croatia. After a goal-less first half, Croatia took the lead in the first minute of the second half through Davor Šuker, his fifth goal of the tournament. France responded immediately with Lilian Thuram scoring his first international goal. Thuram then added a second twenty minutes from time to send France to their first ever World Cup final. The match ended in controversy however when Laurent Blanc was sent off after a skirmish with Croatia's Slaven Bilić. Bilić had sunk down to
Japan at the FIFA World Cup three group games and finished in 31st position. Masashi Nakayama scored Japan's first ever goal in a World Cup Finals against Jamaica on 26 June 1998 in a 2-1 defeat. Keisuke Honda becomes the first Japanese player to score in three world cups: 2010, 2014, 2018. They made their sixth appearance at the finals in the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia. Japan became the first ever Asian nation to beat a side from South America, after they won 2-1 against Colombia in the group stage. The team made it to the Round of 16 (the first knock-out round) but