England end penalty jinx

The World Cup-winning French team returned home to a heroes' welcome yesterday, parading down the Champs-Elysees as hundreds of thousands of cheering fans gave a raucous welcome to the country's newest idols.

France overcame a determined Croatia to win 4-2 in Sunday's final in Russia, with teenager Kylian Mbappe applying the coup de grace and cementing his place as a new global superstar at the age of just 19.

Millions of fans in France then celebrated into the night, honking car horns and flying the tricolour flag while the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe were lit up in the national colours of blue, white and red.

Crowds began converging early Monday on the Champs-Elysees, the gathering point for all national celebrations, to catch a glimpse of a returning squad which has captured the country's imagination.

As the celebrating players descended on an open-air bus under heavy police guard -- some of the 2,000 officers deployed in the capital -- nine jets from the Patrouille de France, the air force's acrobatic unit, did an honorary flyover trailing blue, white and red smoke.

After leaving the Champs-Elysees, the players quickly changed into custom-made blue suits before being welcomed at the Elysee Palace by President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte, who were also decked out in blue for the occasion.

Macron previously promised the Legion of Honour for the victors' "exceptional services" to the country, an award already given to the legendary team which won France's first World Cup title in 1998.

The first couple then posed with the team as they sang the Marseillaise national anthem and waved scarves for a joyous group photo, before heading inside for a private meeting.

"Thanks to you all!" Macron told the team after gathering again outside. "This team is beautiful because you are united!"

Despite a voice nearly failing him, Pogba then proved himself a showman off the field as well as on by leading the guests in an impromptu celebratory rap punctuated by "Allez les Bleus!"

Nearly 3,000 guests were invited to the reception in the Elysee gardens, including around 1,000 youths from local football clubs such as Bondy, the gritty Paris suburb whose towering housing projects produced Mbappe.

Afterwards guests would be treated to the beats of DJ Snake, who has worked with pop stars including Lady Gaga and is part of the Pardon My French collective of French DJs.

Macron had already celebrated with the team on Sunday -- even doing "dab" dance moves with players in a video that has gone viral -- after attending the final in Moscow.

Later, the team were expected to attend a dinner in their honour at the posh Hotel du Crillon.

In Paris, the metro system has temporarily renamed six of its stations in honour of the key players, with the Victor Hugo stop -- named after the famed 19th-century writer -- becoming Victor Hugo Lloris after the team's goalkeeper.

Two stations were rebaptised in tribute to France coach Didier Deschamps, who captained the national side to its first World Cup victory, won on home soil in 1998.

"There are two things that matter -- one is that these 23 players are now together for life, whatever happens, and also that from now on they will not be the same again, because they are world champions," a champagne-soaked Deschamps said Sunday.

Macron will be relieved that joyous and occasionally chaotic celebrations across France on Sunday night passed off without any major incident following a string of terror attacks in France since 2015.

Croatia set up a dream final with France as they came from a goal down to beat England 2-1 in a nail-biting semifinal at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow yesterday.

Mario Mandzukic struck the winner in the 109th minute after the game headed into extra time following a 1-1 stalemate in regulation 90 minutes. England defender Kieran Trippier gave the Three Lions a fifth-minute lead with a spectacular free-kick before Ivan Perisic levelled the margin in the 68th minute with a first-time flick into the left-hand corner of the net.

And the moment Turkish referee Cuneyt Cakir blew the final whistle after four minutes of added time, the Croatian players burst into wild celebration for having made it into the final for the first time in their history, leaving England to eat the humble pie 28 years after that gut-wrenching defeat against Germany in Italia '90. 

Despite the defeat, this young England team showed they can play entertaining, fearless and not conventional football. Raheem Sterling, Dele Alli, Jasse Lingard, John Stones and goalkeeper Jordan Pickford, whose brilliance under the bar ended the Three Lions' shootout jinx in the round or 16 against Colombia, were really pushing a seasoned Croatian side into tight corners.

And England needed only five minutes to take the lead through a magnificent free-kick from Trippier, who whipped the ball over the wall and into the top right-hand corner that Croatia goalkeeper Danijel Subasic could only watch. England got the free-kick just outside the box when Luka Modric pulled Alli, who looked ominously poised after being nicely fed by Lingard. It was the Tottenham Hotspur winger's first goal on England shirt.

The early goal fuelled more energy into the England attack, with Sterling making those sprints down the right flank. They won a corner in the 14th minute and it was time for another defender to bury it for a team that had proved to be the most successful side from dead-ball situations in this World Cup. But Harry Maguire headed the ball wide off the mark.

The pace of England attack created all sorts of problems for Croatia's defence and a terrible mispass from Domagoj Vida, who was jeered by his the fans whenever he touched the ball, almost allowed Sterling to score another. But the Manchester City forward killed that opportunity by trying to feed it to Harry Kane, who was offside.

Kane, the Tottenham Hotspur forward and the leading scorer in the World Cup with six goals, had his share of chances in the 30th minute. But his shots were amazingly saved by Subasic. After being nicely set up by Lingard, Kane drove a low sided-footed shot that Subasic partially parried and Kane's second attempt off the rebound from a tight angle hit the post before the ball somehow bounced away after hitting the goalkeeper.

Having survived the early onslaught, Modric finally showed up in the final third as he sent through an overlapping Rebic, who sent a rising shot towards the top left post. But that only allowed Pickford to warm his hands for the first time in the evening.

But the post-lemon session offered a completely different picture, with the Croats coming firing in all cylinders. And it turned into anybody's game after Perisic restored parity in the 68th minute.

It was a reward for constant pressure. Vrsaljko curled in the ball towards the far post that Perisic buried with a first-time flick. Four minutes later, Perisic almost got his second goal but his low shot past Pickford came off the far post. Rebic's shot on the rebound came straight at the young England goalkeeper.

England got a golden opportunity to take the decisive lead in the ninth minute of extra time, but Stone's goal bound header was cleared off the line by Vrsalijko. Few minutes later Pickford made an equally brilliant save at the other end off a Mandzukic shot on a Perisic cross from the right.

But the experienced Juventus striker made no mistake to pounce on a loose ball three minutes into the second half of extra-time. After England failed to clear a high ball down the left, Perisic beat Trippier to a header to the left of the box. Mandzukic was first to get the dropping ball and fired an unstoppable left-footer into the bottom right. And that meant dreamland for Croatia.

Sweden are delighted to make it to the quarter-finals but they are not satisfied yet, coach Janne Andersson told reporters after his side edged Switzerland 1-0 to reach the World Cup quarter-finals for the first time since 1994.

In another gritty team performance, Emil Forsberg's deflected shot secured victory over a misfiring Switzerland who were smothered by Sweden's defence, and set up a clash with either England or Colombia on Saturday.

"This team personifies the approach we all share - we work for each other on and off the pitch, and I'm incredibly happy that it's paying off," Andersson told reporters.

"We're going to focus on one thing when we've digested this victory, and that's the game on Saturday. We don't even know what team we will face yet, but that is going to be the focus of our preparations," he said.

The Swedes have now seen off Netherlands from their qualifying group, Italy in a playoff, Germany at the group stage and Switzerland in the last 16, leading to questions about whether other nations have underestimated Andersson and his men.

"I think you'd have to ask everyone else that question. We know we are a good team, that we've earned our successes - we know how we got this far," the 55-year-old explained.

"We've worked this way throughout, we're continuing the same way, and what other teams and countries think about that is not interesting."

The delighted Sweden fans stayed behind to sing their modest coach's name long after the final whistle, and he came back out after the teams had left the field.

"It's a surreal feeling, to be standing in St Petersburg on the pitch afterwards and people are calling out my name. That feels strange - during the match I'm focused on the game," he said.

Sweden may have exceeded expectations in Russia but they are not done yet, and Andersson and his squad will now assess the players and their coming opponents before going into battle again.

"Now it's about taking the next step. We're not satisfied with this, and nothing more," he said.

"We want to win the next match as well - if you start to lower the bar, the level of ambition, that's not going to make for satisfaction."

TOO SLOW AND LACKING EMOTION, SAYS SWISS COACH

Switzerland were too slow and lacked emotion, coach Vladimir Petkovic said after watching his side meekly surrender to Sweden.

"We are sorely disappointed, we wanted to do more," Petkovic said. "Sweden did precisely what they were good at and that was enough to beat us. We should have done things better, but we were not good enough to win this match."

Switzerland had more possession but were too predictable to find a way past the massed Swedish defence.

"We wanted to play down the wings but we were too slow, our passes were not good," said Petkovic. "We played out of defence too slowly and we also tried to play diagonal passes, but we were not good enough."

The defeat was doubly disappointing as the tournament had been seen as a golden opportunity for a generation of players -- many sons of immigrants from the Balkans -- which is regarded as the finest the country has produced.

"We didn't find any fluidity and we got stuck in the middle," said Petkovic. "Our emotions were playing tricks on us.

"Sweden are a strong team but we didn't expect to be losing against them -- but there were tiny details..."

He added: "This game was only ever going to be decided with a own goal or a long-range shot."

The World Cup final between France and Croatia on Sunday was briefly interrupted when three intruders affiliated to anti-Kremlin punk band Pussy Riot ran onto the pitch before being hauled off by stewards.

The pitch invaders, who were dressed in police-style outfits, were later detained by police, one of them told Reuters by telephone from a police station near Moscow's Luzhniki stadium, venue for the match.

In a post on its Facebook page, the group said its action was intended to draw attention to what it said were human rights abuses in Russia.

Three of Pussy Riot's original members were jailed in 2012 for staging a protest against Russian President Vladimir Putin in a church and the group have since become a symbol of anti-Kremlin direct action.

In the second half of Sunday's match, the three people wearing white shirts with police-style epaulettes, black trousers and police hats ran out onto the pitch from the area behind the French goal. A fourth person tried to run onto the pitch but was tackled on the sidelines.

The three ran about 50 metres, dispersing in different directions, before stewards wearing high-visibility jackets tackled them to the ground and dragged them off the pitch.

One photograph on social media showed one of the pitch invaders, a woman with blonde hair tucked under a police cap, performing a high-five with France player Kylian Mbappe before being caught.

The match, watched from the stands by Putin and the French and Croatian presidents, was halted, but resumed about 25 seconds later. A witness at the stadium said he had seen police escorting the pitch invaders out of the stadium grounds.

The pitch invasion was the first significant security lapse in the five-week tournament that has won hosts Russia widespread praise for their good organisation and efficiency.

Pussy Riot member Olga Kurachyova told Reuters she was one of the pitch invaders and was being held at Luzhniki police station. She said she could not speak further because police were trying to take her mobile phone away from her.

Moscow police said in a statement that three young women and a young man had been detained after running onto the pitch.

LIST OF DEMANDS

In its Facebook post, Pussy Riot complained of rights abuses in Russia. They alluded to Oleg Sentsov, a Ukrainian filmmaker jailed for 20 years in 2015 for setting fire to two offices in Crimea, including one belonging to Russia's ruling party, after Moscow annexed the region from Ukraine.

Pussy Riot said their demands included freeing political prisoners in Russia, freedom of speech on the internet, freedom to protest, and allowing political competition.

The group shared a video on social media recorded before the incident featuring three female activists, at least two of whom were among those detained. They wore police uniforms and one of them wore a pink balaclava.

"The World Cup has shown wonderfully what the police can be like in Russia, but what will happen afterwards?" one of the activists asked in the video, an apparent allusion to lenient policing noted by Russians during the tournament.

A separate video posted on social media appeared to show the moments after the pitch invaders had been detained.

Two of them, a man and a woman, could be seen standing in a room, dressed in dishevelled police uniforms, while a voice off camera demanded handcuffs be brought.

"Do you know that Russia will pay for this to FIFA through sanctions?" the off-camera voice said, in an angry tone. "You wanted to shit on Russia, didn’t you?"

"We are for Russia," the male detainee replied.

"Sometimes I regret that it's not 1937," the person off- camera in the video said. That year was the height of political repressions carried out by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

Photographs of the pitch invasion suggested the pitch invaders did not include the three Pussy Riot members who were jailed in 2012 for performing in the church.

Russian news website MediaZona, co-founded by one of the original three Pussy Riot members, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, reported that one of the pitch invaders was Pyotr Verzilov, Tolokonnikova's husband.

Croatia captain Luka Modric beat competition from the likes of Kylian Mbappe, Antoine Griezmann, and Eden Hazard to win the golden ball as the best player in the World Cup even as his side lost the final of the showpiece event 4-2 against France.

Modric scored two goals in the group stage and converted both of his attempts in penalty shootouts to help Croatia reach the final. Belgium talisman and captain Hazard, who had been in blazing form throughout this campaign, scoring three goals, was awarded the silver ball while French forward Antoine Griezmann was handed the bronze ball.

Belgium goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois was given the golden glove award for his three clean-sheets, conceeding six goals in seven matches with some excellent saves against Brazil being his showcase performance.

Rain poured down in the Luzhniki stadium in Moscow as Modic embraced Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic after being given the award by FIFA president Gianni Infantino and Russia President Vladimir Putin.

Croatia coach Zlatko Dalic said: “He played a terrific tournament which is another commendation for the team which helped to bring about Luka's success. He did the lion share of our play and he was a deserved winner of the Golden Ball.”

Croatia had shown great fight in the first half before a Griezmann penalty handed France the lead again in the second half before they added two more goals.

France's 19-year-old star Kylian Mbappe was named the tournament's Best Young Player after scoring Les Bleus' fourth goal on Sunday, becoming the youngest since Pele in 1958 to find the net in the final.

England captain Harry Kane was confirmed as the Golden Boot winner, his six goals outpacing the four of Griezmann while Belgium striker Romelu Lukaku was named the Bronze boot winner.

While Mbappe, Portugal captain Cristiano Ronaldo and Russia’s Denis Cheryshev also scored four goals in the competition, but Griezmann bagged two assists while Lukaku had one, which decided their higher ranking in the top-scorers’ list.