MOSCOW – The World Cup has long been overdue for a surprise winner. It hasn’t even really had a shocking finalist since Czechoslovakia in 1962. But Croatia, its population just 4.1 million, is in the final after another performance of extraordinary resilience.
It had needed extra time and penalties to get through the previous two rounds, and by the end of its 2-1 extra-time triumph over England–at the site of Sunday's final vs. France–it was running on empty, and understandably so after playing 90 extra minutes over the course of 10 days. But somehow it found the energy and determination to come back from a first half in which it was fortunate only to be a goal down.