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
Egypt at the FIFA World Cup team of 1934 was only able to play one match because of a different tournament format. An Egyptian player with a notable record is goalkeeper Essam El-Hadary. On 25 June 2018, he became the oldest player ever to appear in a World Cup match with 45 years and 5 months. He saved a penalty in the first half of the match against Saudi Arabia, but ultimately Egypt lost 1-2. Scoring twice at Egypt's first-ever World Cup match, their 2-4 defeat against Hungary, made Abdulrahman Fawzi the only African goal scorer at FIFA World Cup finals for decades. It took 84