Paul Giblin
MOSCOW, July 13 (Xinhua) -- France are clear favorites to win Sunday's World Cup final against Croatia. Anyone who has seen the performances of this French side, which has no apparent weaknesses and that has gone from strength to strength over their six matches in Russia, will agree with that assessment.
However, there is another reason why France have to be considered favorites in the Luzhniki Stadium; they have played a lot less football than their opponents over the past two weeks.
The last fortnight has seen both France and Croatia navigate three games in the knockout stages to get to the big event. But while France have won all of those games in 90 minutes, beating Argentina, Uruguay and Belgium on the way to the final, Croatia needed extra-time in all of their matches and penalties in two of them.
Denmark were sent packing after a penalty shootout in the last 16 and Russia met the same fate in the quarterfinals before Croatia's 2-1 win over England on Wednesday. That means that the Croatians have played an extra 90 minutes of football (effectively an entire match) more than the French since June 30. Perhaps because of that no player has covered more ground than the 63 kilometers done by midfielder Luka Modric.
The French also played their semifinal against Belgium on Tuesday, while Croatia played their 120 minutes against England on Wednesday: meaning not only did they play 30 minutes more than France, they also have 24 hours less to recover and to prepare for the final.
That becomes even more important seeing as how many key members of the Croatian side; Luka Modric, Ivan Rakitic, Vedran Corluka, Mario Mandzukic and Ivan Strinic, are aged 30 or over, when the body tends to need longer to recover. Only three members of the expected French starting 11 (Olivier Giroud, Blaise Matuidi and goalkeeper Hugo Lloris) are over 30 and the next oldest, Antoine Griezmann and N'Golo Kante are both 27.
Of course many thought fatigue could be a factor for Croatia's semifinal against England after they played 120 minutes in the heat and humidity of Sochi. Croatia finished the semifinal the stronger of the two sides, but logic says that in the final, time is very much on France's side.
