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
1998 FIFA World Cup Group A the final two games, Morocco looked like they would take second place, because they were beating Scotland while Brazil were beating Norway. However, Norway scored two late goals to win and take the second qualifying place away from Morocco. "All times are local (UTC+2) 1998 FIFA World Cup Group A Group A of the 1998 FIFA World Cup was one of eight groups of four teams competing at the 1998 World Cup in France. The first matches were played on 10 June 1998 and the final games took place simultaneously on 23 June 1998. The group consisted of world champions