Lessons Learned from France versus Croatia

I am not a fan of football. A 90-minute match is something that I really need to re-consider watching it or not. Besides its long duration, it's usually aired on TV some time around midnight, especially those of international matches. That makes me prefer sleeping early to watching the match.

However, because of the World Cup 2018, there were some nights that I couldn't start sleeping early because my husband often watched the matches. It's not because of his "goal, hooray!", but because I needed to prepare a cup of coffee for him (and sometimes for me, too). And because of that too, I happened to watch the very long duration match of Russia vs Croatia on a very early Sunday morning. And I could definitely enjoy watching the match with my husband falling asleep next to me.

Then last night was the final between Croatia and France. I didn't have any intention to watch it because I was physically and emotionally tired after some relatives' sleepover the night before. So I fell asleep next to my husband, who was watching the match. I suddenly woke up because I heard the loud noise from the match. It was still 65 minutes of the match, and the score was 4-1, and I wondered why French team looked so happy. I even had a stupid thought about the new timing rule for the World Cup Final that it only needed 65 minutes to play for the final.

It turned out that French team and the supporters felt sure that they would win the match. That's why they cheered so loud to celebrate their upcoming victory. But sooner after their joy of 4 goals, Croatia managed to add one goal. So the score was 4-2.

Though France is the champion of the World Cup 2018, I got two valuable lessons from watching Croatia try to survive for the remaining 25 minutes.

One lesson is about being persistent. No matter how proud and loud France's joy was, Croatia could still create a goal from a very solid teamwork. A weak team won't ever be able to do that.

Lesson number two is about being patient when facing a defeat. It's fine to feel sad and to cry, like when Luka Modric cried and then the president of Croatia wiped his tears and hugged him. But Modric and the other Croatian players didn't show great depression.

In fact, they should feel proud because they have given their energy and effort to play their very best. Even with lower score, Croatian team is the champion to me.