France’s Hugo Lloris lifts the World Cup trophy as they celebrate winning. Photograph: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images

France seal second World Cup triumph with 4-2 win over brave Croatia

Daniel Taylor at the Luzhniki Stadium
Sun 15 Jul 2018 17.54 BST

When the decisive blows arrived the entire squad piled on top of one another in the victory scrum. Hugo Lloris, the goalkeeper, had run the entire length of the pitch to join in the celebrations. All the substitutes were throwing themselves into this heap of arms and legs. There were even members of the backroom staff contemplating joining in, and who could blame them? France were on their way to winning the World Cup and a party was under way behind the goal where the tricolours were fluttering.

Kylian Mbappé

Those were the moments when everybody knew that no side – not even one with Croatia’s resilience and powers of durability – would find a way back. Paul Pogba and Kylian Mbappé had scored in quick succession and the next edition of the France national shirt will have two stars, rather than one, above the cockerel.

Mick Jagger watches England's semi-final defeat in Moscow  CREDIT: DARREN STAPLES

 

Why nobody ever wants Mick Jagger's support in the World Cup

Corrine Corrodus

12 JULY 2018 • 10:25AMFollow

 

England fans have accused Mick Jagger of cursing the national team by attending their semi-final match against Croatia on Wednesday, as the star is believed to bring bad luck to those he supports in World Cup tournaments.

My hero / Football by David Conn

My hero: 

Football

 by David Conn

The game should be governed in a way that makes all football lovers proud

David Conn
Saturday 30 May 2015

T

he former Argentine footballer Jorge Valdano once wrote that the journey of every adult football lover begins with a child, kicking a ball to the park. For some of those involved at the highest ranks of Fifa, their journey from the park ended this week in dawn arrests or guilty pleas to alleged corruption beyond a child’s imagination. One ineradicable image conjured by the US criminal indictment is the allegation that the Fifa executive committee member Jeffrey Webb had a $3m bribe partly routed to the man who was building him a swimming pool. The 164-page indictment of 14 defendants indeed left one almost drowning in detail, but still the anger and disgust came through. I fell in love with football as a boy in the parks, playgrounds and in the very air of Manchester, and I still believe – more than ever – in its beauty as a sport and the essential effort, spirit and team ethos it requires. Yet the game is subject to relentless exploitation by people entrusted to be its custodians, what the Swiss attorney general, referring to allegations regarding Fifa’s award of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar, described this week as “unjust enrichment”. Yet unjust enrichment is not restricted to the bribes or kickbacks that fall under the strict definition of corruption. Would it have been more admirable had Webb, if this bribe is proven, taken a grossly inflated fee from a TV rights contract by being on the payroll legitimately? Many whose enrichment has outraged football lovers have made millions by selling shares in football companies that supporters still quaintly refer to as clubs. The guiding light for running football should be as simple as the game’s essence. Picture the young boy, running to the park with his ball, and nurture a sport fit for his lifelong loyalty.

• David Conn’s books about football include The Beautiful Game? and Richer than God.

THE GUARDIAN

2009
001 My hero / Oscar Wilde by Michael Holroyd
002 My hero / Harley Granville-Barker by Richard Eyre
003 My hero / Edward Goldsmith by Zac Goldsmith
004 My hero / Fridtjof Nansen by Sara Wheeler 
005 My hero / Mother Mercedes Lawler IBVM by Antonia Fraser
007 My hero / Ernest Shepard by Richard Holmes
008 My hero / JG Ballard by Will Self
009 My hero / Alan Ross by William Boyd
010 My hero / Ben the labrador by John Banville
011 My hero / Vicent van Gogh by Margaret Drabble
012 My hero / Franz Marek by Eric Hobsbawm

2010

013 My hero / Bob Moog by Don Paterson

014 My Hero / Sebastian Walker by Julie Myerson 

015 My Hero / My Father John Gross by Philip Gross

016 My heroes in Postman's Park by Christopher Reid

017 My hero / Jack Yeats by Colm Tóibín
018 My hero / Francisco Goya by Diana Athill
019 My hero / Max Stafford-Clark by Sebastian Barry
020 My hero / Arthur Holmes by Richard Fortey

021 My hero / Patrick Marber by Craig Rainer
022 My hero / John Keats by Helen Dunmore
023 My hero / Edith Wharton by Lionel Shriver
024 My hero / Elizabeth Barrett Browing by Sara Paretsky
025 My hero / Nelson Mandela by Gordon Brown
026 My hero / Billy Wilder by David Nicholls
027 My hero / Samuel Beckett by Nick Clegg
028 My hero / Margaret Atwood by Caroline Lucas
029 My hero / Colette by Helen Simpson
030 My hero / Cyd Charisse by Tony Parsons

031 My hero / Nicolai Medtner by Philip Pullman
032 My hero / Jean Genet by Ahdaf Soueif
033 My hero / Jeri Johnson by Kate Moss
034 My hero / John Maynard Keynes by Joan Bakewell
035 My hero / Patti Smith by Joseph O'Connor 

036 My hero / Robert Lowell by Jonathan Raban
037 My hero / Beryl Bainbridge by Michael Holroyd
038 My hero / Charles Schulz by Jenny Colgan
039 My hero / Oliver Knussen by Adam Foulds
040 My hero / Annie Proulx by Alan Warner

041 My hero / David Lynch by Paul Murray
042 My hero / Edwin Morgan by Robert Crawford
043 My hero / Anne Lister by Emma Donoghue
044 My hero / Jane Helen Harrinson by Mary Beard
045 My hero / Edmund Burke by David Marquand
046 My hero / Shelagh Deleaney by Jeanette Winterson
047 My hero / Christopher Marlowe by Val McDermid
048 My hero / Gwen John by Anne Enright
049 My hero / Michael Mayne by Susan Hill
050 My hero / Stanley Spencer by Howard Jacobson

051 My hero / William Beveridge by Will Hutton
052 My hero / Jean McConville by Amanda Foreman
053 My hero / Alexander Pushkin by Elaine Feinstein
058 My hero / Cy Twombly by Edmund de Waal

2011
079 My hero / Gene Wolfe by Neil Gaiman
087 My hero / Alberto Moravia by John Burnside
096 My hero / Isaac Babel by AD Miller
097 Lucian Freud by Esi Edugyan

100 Thomas Tranströmer by Robin Robertson
102 My hero / David Hockney by Susan Hill

2012

120 My hero / Graham Greene by Richard Holloway

134 My hero / Homer by Madeline Miller
146 My hero / Roald Dahl by Michael Rosen
156 My hero / Barack Obama by Lorrie Moore

2013
167 My hero / Oliver Sacks by Hilary Mantel

169 My hero / Jean Rhys by Linda Grant

174 My hero / Alice Munro by Nell Freudenberger
176 My hero / Mae West by Kathy Lette
181 My hero / Lydia Davis by Ali Smith
184 My hero / Louise Bourgeois by Tracey Emin
185 My hero / Albert Camus by David Constantine

190 My hero / Iris Murdoch by Charlotte Mendelson
194 My hero / René Descartes by James Kelman
199 My hero / Albert Camus by Geoff Dyer

2014
206 My hero / Sir John Tenniel by Chris Riddell

211 My hero / Mavis Gallant by Jhumpa Lahiri and  Michael Ondaatje

219 My hero / William Shakespeare by Susan Cooper

222 My hero / Emily Brontë by Lucasta Miller
227 My hero / Salman Rushdie by Antonia Fraser

231 My hero / Nadime Gordimer by Gillian Slovo

233 My hero / Robin Williams by Anne Fine

241 My hero / Mary Shelley by Neil Gaiman

244 My hero / Jim Shepard by Joshua Ferris

246 My hero / P.D. James by Val McDermid

2015

251 My hero / Virgil by Richard Jenkyns

261 My hero / Football by David Conn

262 My hero / Ali Smith by Alex Clark

263 My hero / Mazie Gordon-Philips by Jami Attenberg

264 My hero / Jim Grace by Daniel Hahn

265 My hero / James Salter by Rupert Thomson

266 My hero / Jeff Buckley by Benjamin Wood

267 My hero / EL Doctorow by Michael Schmidt

268 My hero / Tom Gunn by Andrew McMillan

269 My hero / Beryl Markham by Paula McLain

270 My hero / Patricia Highsmith by Peter Swanson

271 My hero / Claudia Rankine Sandeep Parmar

272 My hero / Henning Mankell by Ian Rankin

273 My hero / Toni Morrinson by Marlon James

274 My hero / Lisa Jardine by Martin Rees 

275 My hero / Allen Ginsberg by Steve Silberman

276 My hero / John Lennon by Kevin Barry

277 My hero / Albert Einstein by Graham Farmelo
278 My hero / William McIlvanney by Ian Rankin

2016

279 My hero / Truman Capote's In Cold Blood at 50
280 My hero / George Weindelfel by Antonia Fraser
281 My hero / Dmitri Shostakovich by Julian Barnes
282 My hero / Charlotte Brontë by Tracy Chevalier
283 My hero / Margaret Foster by Valerie Grove
284 My hero / David Cesarini by David Herman
285 My hero / Umberto Eco by Jonathan Coe

286 My hero / Louise Rennison by Philip Ardagh 

287 Elena Ferrante by Margaret Drabble
288 Berthold Lubertkin by Marina Lewycka
289 Flann O'Brien by John Banville
290 My hero / My English Teacher by Andrew Motion 

291 My hero / Victoria Wood by AL Kennedy

292 My hero / Elie Wiesel by David Miliband

Giorgio Chiellini of Italy shows the bite mark which the Uruguayan FA
are claiming has been Photoshopped. Photograph: Maurizio Borsari/Rex

Uruguayan FA defends Luis Suárez, claiming bite marks are Photoshopped

• Fifa insiders expect six-match ban as the punishment
• Fowler: ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he left Liverpool now’

•  
• The Guardian, Wednesday 25 June 2014 21.30 BST
• BY OWEN GIBSON IN RIO DE JANEIRO

The Uruguayan Football Association has gone on the offensive in an effort to save Luis Suárez from a lengthy ban for biting Giorgio Chiellini,claiming he is the victim of a smear campaign by the Italians, the English media and the Brazilian hosts.

As Suárez came under pressure from his sponsors, fellow professionals and Fifa’s disciplinary committee after sinking his teeth into Chiellini’s shoulder, the Uruguayan FA attempted to circle the wagons.