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
African nations at the FIFA World Cup 2–1 at home and qualified for the World Cup for the first time. Cameroon were placed in Group 1, where they surprised everyone by remaining undefeated. They drew 0–0 with Peru, 0–0 with Poland, and 1–1 with Italy. Grégoire Mbida scored Cameroon's first World Cup finals goal. Italy had also drawn its three matches, so also had a goal difference of 0, but had scored two goals to Cameroon's one, so Cameroon were eliminated. This was especially painful because in their opening match against Peru, Cameroon striker Roger Milla had a goal wrongly disallowed for offside. Algeria were placed in