To secure its status as the best ever World Cup the tournament needed a memorable final. It got it. What a finale it was to this 31-day festival of football, as Gareth Southgate called it, and it was the highest-scoring final since England beat West Germany 4-2 in 1966. Well, they sang football’s coming home. At least the score was the same and while England and their fans will never stop dreaming of what might have been - just 22 minutes from the final, if anyone needed reminding - France have the 18-carat gold, 14-inch, 11lb trophy for the second time ever and the second time in 20 years.
France waited until the game was over, until the fireworks shot into the sky and the rain soaked them to the skin, until that glistening trophy was safe in their hands and golden confetti sparkled in their hair.
Only then, once France’s players knew they had emerged triumphant from a World Cup of chaos and abandon, a tournament that defied expectation and prediction, did they succumb to the wild spirit of the last month and do the one thing they, and they alone, had managed to avoid. At the end, after the end, the French finally lost control. They celebrated at the final whistle, of course, their 4-2 victory over Croatia confirmed: Hugo Lloris led his teammates in an Icelandic thunderclap. The squad gathered together to hoist Didier Deschamps, its coach, into the air. Half a dozen players clambered into the stands to take French flags from the crowd.
France won the World Cup, but that is far from the whole story. So many players and teams came out of the tournament on towering highs or devastating lows. The rain had turned the pitch into a slip and slide. France players skid around everywhere completely ignoring that if they collect enough of those gold tokens, they will easily win the Crystal Maze.
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