Croatia must make sure World Cup heartbreak leads to long-term success

MOSCOW -- Luka Modric collected his golden ball award, accepted the congratulations of Gianni Infantino and Vladimir Putin, and set off down the line of well-wishers in inscrutable fashion. Next to hail the World Cup's best player was French president Emmanuel Macron and then, replete with red-and-white Croatia shirt, came somebody who could not wait to see him. It was his country's president, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, and if Modric was keeping his emotions locked away, the politician was happy to let it all out. She clasped Modric, this remarkable symbol of a young nation, in a tight embrace and visibly fought back the tears.

Statesmanlike behaviour is overrated at times like this. Besides, it was a time for hugs. Around 15 minutes earlier, as Croatia's players faced the massed red-and-white checked shirts behind the Luzhniki Stadium's south-easterly goal, Dejan Lovren had gone around and hugged them one by one. There were commiserations and consolatory words, but it was Ivan Rakitic, his teammate of the past eight years, whom Lovren held the longest. One is 30 years old and the other just turned 29; two players nearing the end of their peak years, who had just experienced the sport's apex.

What could all four, lost in a moment none of them could have foreseen, have been thinking?

For Grabar-Kitarovic it was, presumably, an bubbling over of intense pride in a 27-year-old country and its soaring journey to the top. For Modric, there will have been the burning, deep-seated frustration of a winner who had come so close to writing himself and his national team into football's pantheon but may never get another chance. Perhaps Lovren and Rakitic, surveying the scene in that tribune, were wondering too whether anything in their careers could hit this level again.

They had given everything, wrung every last drop from tired bodies and minds while keeping France honest to the end of a match they had largely dominated but ultimately, Zlatko Dalic's players had fallen just short.

"I'm feeling big emotion," the Croatian FA president, Davor Suker, told ESPN FC after he had congratulated their players in the dressing room, with the implications of the defeat to France beginning to sink in. "Looking at the score, I think it's justice. You need to say congratulations to the French players and coach; I think the best team won today."

That was the wider theme of Croatia's immediate reaction: no recourse to an untimely and hugely frustrating VAR decision at 1-1 -- "We need to respect VAR and it's bad luck for us, that's all I can say," said Suker -- no desire to sling mud or leave the tournament with a sour taste.

"You must be dignified in defeat and respect the scoreline: that was my message to my players," Dalic explained in his post-match news conference. At a World Cup final, it is the best way to be: everyone knew what had turned the game and Dalic himself said the penalty that gave France their second goal should not have been given in a final, but also that this was no time to dwell on the negatives.