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
Golden goal confusion when events could choose among several different extra time rules. The golden goal in the Euro 96 final was controversial, as the Czechs, who were on the losing side argued that the Germans' winning goal was offside. The silver goal has been called illogical in that it denies the losing team the chance of saving the match simply by virtue of when the goal is scored, a point best illustrated in the Euro 2004 semi-final: if the Greek goal had been scored 15 seconds later, that is immediately after the extra-time interval (instead of the last two seconds of