France vs. Croatia
Final, Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow
Croatia, which broke away from the former Yugoslavia in 1991 and has roughly the same population as the greater Detroit area, has shown its mettle in reaching the final. It won after trailing in the second half of each of its do-or-die knockout games, against Denmark, host Russia and England. Now the Croatians’ legs will become the question. They’ve played a total of 90 minutes of extra time over the past three games, the equivalent of an entire match, and then had a three-day turnaround before the biggest match of their lives against a deep squad adept at squeezing the life out of a surging offense.