France’s World Cup final preparations full of laughs, determination and a sense of calm

SportsCenter’s Stewart Robson predicts France and Croatia’s starting lineups for the 2018 World Cup Final.
ESPN FC’s Stewart Robson lists his combined XI before the World Cup final and discusses the similarities to now and the Euro 2016 final.
The FC guys break down Croatia’s underdog mentality and wonder if it will be enough to get a win against France in the World Cup final.
With less than 24 hours to go, the Kwese studio crew preview the World Cup final and the keys to victory for France and Croatia.

It’s Saturday evening in one of the meeting rooms of the Hyatt Regency hotel in the centre of Moscow. The French players have just finished their dinner.

“More pasta?!” laughs Kylian Mbappe, which is what he always says before each meal.

This was a special dinner though. The last one before the World Cup final.

Around the big rectangular table where the 23 members of the French squad were sat, there was no sign of pressure. Rather, it was the same coolness, the same laughs, the same jokers — Benjamin Mendy, especially — as it has been before every game at the 2018 World Cup.

Once the dinner is over, the players slowly filter back to their bedrooms. Not all of them though. The 11 who will start on Sunday against Croatia — Hugo Lloris, Benjamin Pavard, Raphael Varane, Samuel Umtiti, Lucas Hernandez, Paul Pogba, Ngolo Kante, Blaise Matuidi, Antoine Griezmann, Olivier Giroud and Mbappe — have one more thing to do before going to bed: a meeting with Didier Deschamps and his assistant Guy Stephan.

Like they did before the games against Argentina, Uruguay and Belgium, the two coaches and their players are going through the tactics individually and what each player has to do against the Croats.

Deschamps doesn’t like change. So he was certainly never going to change his little routine before a World Cup final. Saturday night is no different. The players are probably even more focused and determined than ever before in the competition. This is the final we are talking about — and they want to win it so badly.

Earlier in the day, at 11.15 a.m., the French left their camp base in Istra, 80 kilometres north-west of Moscow, for their seventh and last trip of this World Cup. It is a short one to the capital. On the side of the bus is written the slogan chosen by the French fans before the start of the tournament: “Your strength, our passion. Allez Les Bleus!”

The players have never been so strong and the country and the fans have never felt so passionate. The choice was maybe prophetic.

On the bus, the atmosphere is the same as before each and every match so far. Pogba is in charge of the music. Among other songs, he chose the sound of XXXTENTACION, the U.S. rapper who was shot dead last month in Florida.

As always, Pogba is sat at the back of the vehicle, with Varane, Mendy and Corentin Tolisso in the seats in front of him. Then you can find Griezmann and Ousmane Dembele, next to each other as usual, and playing Football Manager on their laptops.

Dembele and Winchester FC, the team he created in the game, are still going strongly. Presnel Kimpembe is catching up with an episode of “Peaky Blinders,” the British TV series set in the 1920s in Birmingham and which follows the exploits of the Shelby crime family. “Vikings,” “Game of Thrones,” and “El Chapo” are the other series trending with the French at the moment. Thomas Lemar, Kante, Umtiti, Djibril Sidibe and Nabil Fekir play cards.

Deschamps and Stephan are always at the front of the bus, in the second row behind Momo Sanhadji, who is the boss of the security around the team and always in the front.

Once at the hotel, after lunch and before a little nap, Deschamps calls up the whole squad for a team meeting. Everyone is there this time and the manager explains how Croatia are playing, their strengths and their weaknesses with video examples.

His words are simple:

“Your life can change on Sunday. In a World Cup final, only the winners are remembered.

“A final, you don’t play it, you win it. So do it for your country, for you and for your family and friends.”

As usual, Deschamps also has had individual conversations with some of his key players, including Pogba, Matuidi, Lloris and Griezmann. And Mbappe, as well; at 19, he will play a World Cup final, but he doesn’t seem to feel any pressure!

There will be two more meetings on game day: another video session in the morning, and then the last team talk before leaving the hotel to get to the Luzhniki Stadium.

Deschamps always keeps this one short, never more than 15 minutes. He won’t have to say much anyway. Since France beat Belgium on Tuesday to qualify for the final, the leaders of the squad have kept talking, reminding everyone that there is, in Pogba’s words, “one last big effort to put in.”

Laurent Koscielny and Dimitri Payet, who will travel to Moscow from Paris on Sunday morning in the presidential plane with Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron, have texted their teammates. “Bring us the trophy back!” is the message.

The night on Saturday might be short and agitated for some, calm and normal for others. On Sunday, these players will play the biggest game of their lives.

In his room, between two levels of Fortnite and two sips of mate, Griezmann is obsessed with lifting the trophy. Before the game, nothing has changed. After, everything could well do.

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