The World Cup finalists received heroes’ welcomes at home Monday, with hundreds of thousands of well-wishers clogging the Champs-Elysees in Paris to greet the victorious French team while a red-and-white checkerboard carpet was rolled out in Zagreb for runner-up Croatia.
In the Croatian capital, tens of thousands of people wearing national red-and-white checkered colors and waving Croatian flags poured into the streets to greet the team. The crowd, estimated at 250,000, crammed the central squares and the route where the players passed in an open bus, greeting fans and signing autographs.