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
Asian nations at the FIFA World Cup scored, however, Ha Seok-ju was sent off for a bad challenge from behind, and Mexico leveled the score through half-time substitute Ricardo Peláez. With approximately 15 minutes remaining, Luis Hernández put Mexico in the lead with a simple tap-in. Hernández then went on to complete the victory after scoring Mexico's third goal. South Korea had to wait four more years to record their first ever victory in a World Cup: its next game against the Netherlands was a heavy 0–5 defeat, the third-worst loss in the nation's World Cup history. Its third game was against Belgium. A big win would