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
1958 FIFA World Cup and win a World Cup Final. Conversely, Nils Liedholm became the oldest player to score in a World Cup Final at 35 years, 263 Days. This final had the highest number of goals scored by a winning team (5), the highest number of total goals scored (7), and together with the 1970 and 1998 finals shares the highest goal margin of difference (3); Brazil played in all those three finals. The game is also notable for many firsts in FIFA World Cup. With the exception of the 1950 FIFA World Cup final group stage, this marked the first time that