Wind of change in football

Napoli grew their lead at the top of the Serie A table to seven points with a 2-0 win at AC Milan on Tuesday.

Antonio Conte's resurgent side wrapped the match up inside the first half, courtesy of an early Romelu Lukaku goal and a sensational strike by Khvicha Kvaratskhelia.

Napoli sit on 25 points, with champions Inter Milan on 18 but with the chance to reduce the gap when they visit Empoli on Wednesday.

A third defeat of the campaign leaves AC Milan in eighth place, 11 points behind the leaders.

Belgian striker Lukaku scored his fourth goal of the season since joining the 2023 Italian champions in the summer when he broke the deadlock on five minutes.

Napoli's Khvicha Kvaratskhelia celebrates after scoring their second goal against AC Milan. PHOTO: REUTERS

He raced onto a pass from Frank Anguissa, held off a defender and slotted coolly past Mike Maignan in the AC Milan goal.

Napoli goalkeeper Alex Meret was forced twice into action before the half-hour to maintain his side's lead.

As the clock ticked down to half-time, Georgian winger Kvaratskhelia doubled the visitors' lead.

Picking the ball up on the left wing, he drove suddenly inside on his right foot past Youssouf Fofana and rifled a shot from distance into the far post beyond the dive of Maignan.

Alvaro Morata thought he had given Milan a lifeline two minutes after the break with a powerful header.

However, upon VAR review he was shown to have been offside in the build-up to the goal and it was disallowed.

The hosts continued to search for a way back into the encounter and only a fine reflex save by Meret to deny Rafael Leao in the 83rd minute kept Napoli's two-goal cushion intact.

Earlier, goals in either half by Riccardo Orsolini and Jens Odgaard sent Bologna up to 10th in the table with a 2-0 win at Cagliari.

Lecce climbed off the foot of the table by beating nine-men Verona 1-0 thanks to a Patrick Dorgu goal on 51 minutes.

The away side lost Jackson Tchatchoua to a red card five minutes before half-time, then Reda Belahyane was given his marching orders inside the final 10 minutes for a second bookable offence

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.

Romelu Lukaku made an immediate impact on his Napoli debut by netting the leveller which set up Saturday's last-gasp 2-1 win over 10-man Parma, while AC Milan were held to an entertaining 2-2 draw at Lazio.

Belgium striker Lukaku completed a permanent move to Napoli from Chelsea on Thursday, ending a long period of limbo with the Blues.

And he helped save his new team from an embarrassing defeat against a Parma team who had to play nearly half an hour with a man down and an outfield player in goal.

Substitute Lukaku lashed home his first Napoli goal in the second of a whopping 15 minutes of stoppage time past Enrico Delprato, who went between the sticks following Zion Suzuki's 76th-minute sending off.

Suzuki's dismissal for a second booking came moments after coach Fabio Pecchia had made his last possible substitutions for Parma, who had taken a shock 19th-minute lead from the penalty spot through Ange-Yoan Bonny.

And Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa thumped home the winning header four minutes after Lukaku's equaliser to hand Napoli a dramatic second win from their first three matches.

Lukaku netted after being presented to home fans alongside Scott McTominay and Billy Gilmour to supporters before kick-off, all three signed in the days leading up to the match with Parma.

"It's an honour to play for this team, these fans and the players who have welcomed me here so well. It's been bit of a habit of mine over my career to score on my debut but at the end of the day we won, and that's the most important thing," Lukaku told DAZN.

Lukaku was brought in to replace Victor Osimhen who has been excluded from the Napoli squad after failing to find an exit from southern Italy.

Osimhen had been agitating for a move away from Napoli after the club descended into chaos almost immediately after claiming their third league crown last year.

But no club came close to both meeting Napoli's valuation and satisfying Osimhen's wage requirements, leaving the 25-year-old in a gilded cage as the club builds a new team for Antonio Conte.

Milan coach Paulo Fonseca dropped star players Rafael Leao and Theo Hernandez as he tried to shake things up following two deeply disappointing opening displays.

But both were brought on shortly after Lazio took the lead in the 66th minute following two quickfire tap-ins from Valentin Castellanos and Boulaye Dia which cancelled out Strahinja Pavlovic's early opener.

And Leao almost immediately levelled the scores after combining with Hernandez and fellow substitute Tammy Abraham, who made his Milan debut less than a day after arriving on loan from Roma.

However Milan sit 14th on two points, hardly the start fans were hoping for after Fonseca replaced Stefano Pioli during the close season.

Didier Deschamps proclaimed France’s second World Cup triumph was “just as beautiful” as their first after leading them to glory again 20 years on, but Croatia defender Dejan Lovren said that Deschamps' team "did not play football."

"I'm disappointed because we lost the game, we played much, much better football than them, but on the other hand I'm proud of this team and what we have achieved," Lovren said.

"We played beautiful football again. France were one of the favourites to win the World Cup and they did it. I think we were better. They did it another way. They didn't play football, they waited for their chances and they scored. They had their own tactic and you need to respect that. They played the tournament like that, every game, but when you look at all the countries behind us, we're second.” he added.

"There's nothing to talk about now. It's difficult to describe. Maybe after a week or two, a couple of months... right now, it's difficult. Some moments I feel sad, some moments I'm happy. Overall, I'm proud."

Ivan Perisic conceded the first-half penalty after referee Nestor Pitana penalised him for handball following a VAR review.

"I was sure he would not give the pen," said the Liverpool centre-back. "From my point of view, he [Perisic] could not react.

"It was a critical moment, we came back at 1-1, and then this penalty and then 3-1, 4-1, but even then we didn't stop playing football, we still believed, we gave everything, and this is why people are proud now in Croatia."

Didier Deschamps' side had claimed a 1-0 over Belgium in the semifinals with a defensive masterclass which left Belgium star Eden Hazard and Thibaut Courtois deeply unimpressed with what he felt were overly cagey tactics by France in the semi-final, and now Lovren also felt the frustration of coming up against Deschamps's style. Not always the most entertaining, however, in the end, French squad just had too much talent at its disposal to get the job done.

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.