 25th HWCI NCAA Basketball Pool March 2019 Our Silver Anniversary! |
 2nd HWCI FIFA Women's World Cup Soccer Pool May 2019 Can USA repeat? |
 3rd HWCI UEFA EURO Soccer Pool May 2020 No host nation, Europe hosts! |
 7th HWCI FIFA Men's World Cup Soccer Pool November 2022 World Cup in the winter! |
| 2018 World Cup Champion | 2018 Winningest Region |
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FRA -
France (Les Bleus) Fédération Française de Football |
UEFA
- Europe Union of European Football Associations |
| #7 |
C1 | Group C Winners | 6-0-1 | 14 GF-6 GA 3rd Finals ('98, '06) 2nd Championship C1: Beat Australia 2-1 C3: Beat Peru 1-0 C5: Tied Denmark 0-0 R16: Beat 2D-Argentina 4-3 QF: Beat 1A-Uruguay 2-0 SF: Beat 1G-Belgium 1-0 F: Beat 1D-Croatia 4-2 |
UEFA |
10 Teams | 13 Wins | 13-9 Qualified: 2A-RUS, 1B-ESP, 2B-POR, 1C-FRA, 2C-DEN, 1D-CRO, 2E-SUI, 1F-SWE, 1G-BEL, 2G-ENG R16: 50-FRA, 51-RUS, 52-CRO, 54-BEL, 55-SWE, 56-ENG QF: 57-FRA, 58-BEL, 59-CRO, 60-ENG SF: 61-FRA, 62-CRO F: 64-FRA |
CROATIA HUSTLES BUT FRANCE IS ON TARGET FOR 2ND TITLESacre Les Blues, Sokkerbix, and Krispy Kremer join Walleye and BigRedSquare in winner circle
BERLIN, DEUTSCHLAND (smt) -- D1-Croatia started off strong and had most of the possession but C1-France finished when needed in winning their 2nd World Cup title, 4-2. France was so efficient that at halftime they had 2 goals on just one shot on goal. The hero from the semifinal, Mario Mandzukic, accidentally headed the ball off a FRA set piece into his own goal to give the French an early lead. Croatia would equalize on Ivan Perisic's goal but before halftime Perisic would be called for a handball in the box and Antoine Griezmann buried the PK as France headed into halftime with a 2-1 lead. VAR played its final review on that PK with its ~10th pro-PK overturn of the ref (there were about 4 PKs taken away from the ref). Like in the ARG match, FRA struck often and quickly, with two great strikes 6 minutes apart for an insurmountable 3-goal lead, though FRA GK Hugo Lloris would try to help with a horrible misplay allowing Mandzukic to capitalize to the cut the lead to two with 21 minutes left. CRO ran out of gas and didn't have many chances after that. While CRO outshot FRA 15-8, only 3 were on target while 6 of 8 FRA shots were on target. CRO played nearly 3 times as many opportunities into the attacking third but FRA were deadly on their limited chances. The second-youngest team in the tournament can now be thinking about EURO 2020 and a repeat in 2022.
All four who picked FRA to win it all managed to
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