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 received his second yellow card for diving in the penalty area. Ten-men Italy finally fell to a 117th-minute, golden goal header scored by Ahn Jung-hwan, who at the time was ironically playing for Italian club Perugia. In the quarter-finals, Spain were unable to win a second consecutive penalty shootout, losing to South Korea after having two goals controversially disallowed in normal time, with South Korea becoming the first (and, as of 2018, the only) team from outside Europe and the Americas to reach the last four of a World Cup. Four minutes after the restart, a Spanish goal was disallowed,