At the Stade de France on July 12, 1998, Didier Deschamps, Zinedine Zidane and their teammates defeated Brazil 3-0 and became world champions. Several months later, on December 20, 1998, a future football star by the name of Kylian Mbappe was born.

The upcoming World Cup quarterfinal match between France and Uruguay in Nizhny Novgorod on Friday (6/7/2018) will be especially emotional for French striker Antoine Griezmann. For Les Bleus’ soccer star, Uruguay is a part of him and is his second home after France.

A strong defense and effective offense were key to Sweden’s strength on its mission to repeat its past World Cup glory – as either a finalist, like in the 1958 World Cup on its home turf, or a third-place winner, like in the 1950 World Cup in Brazil and the 1994 World Cup in the US.

Dortmund. July 4, 2006. Ten minutes before midnight. The gloomy faces darkened the national team’s changing room at Westfalen Stadium. Philipp Lahm was motionless at the end of the massage chair, his head hanging low.

The German national soccer team specializes in tournaments. Analyst Philipp Selldorf wrote in Süddeutsche Zeitung that Germany’s defeat in the first match reflected a theoretical prediction in sociology of an aging society.

Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi? Who is the best among these two? Comparisons are often made between the two \'soccer gods\', especially during the 2018 World Cup in Russia. The question is most often debated among the respective fans of the two superstars.

Four years ago, the Costa Rican national team was famed as the killer of “giants” after defeating world champions Uruguay and Italy in the group matches of the 2014 World Cup. Now, in Russia, it was their turn to face the wrath of another “giant”, namely Brazil.