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
Panama at the FIFA World Cup 2018, making them record World Cup players for their country. At a score of 6-0 in favour of England at the 2018 World Cup, Felipe Baloy scored after a long free kick by Ricardo Avila for Panama's first World Cup goal. In the following match against Tunisia, Panama scored through an own goal by Tunisian defender Yassine Meriah. Panama at the FIFA World Cup Panama has qualified once for the finals of a FIFA World Cup, the 2018 edition. They directly qualified after securing the third spot in the hexagonal on the final round. This meant that after 10 failed