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
History of the FIFA World Cup hosts in a first-round match that eliminated Colombia. The total attendance for the tournament of nearly 3.6 million remains the biggest in World Cup history. Oleg Salenko of Russia became the first player to score five goals in a single World Cup finals game in his country's 6–1 group stage win over Cameroon. In the same match, 42-year-old Roger Milla scored the only goal for Cameroon, becoming the oldest player ever to score in a World Cup match. Hristo Stoichkov shared the Golden Boot as the joint top goal scorer in the tournament with Oleg Salenko (six goals), as well