France final a special match for Croatia's Perisic

Ivan Perisic once spent two years in France at Socheaux and is now delighted to face Les Bleus in Sunday's World Cup final with Croatia. Ivan Perisic watched Croatia's World Cup semi-final against France on television as a boy, then spent two years in the country. Now he will be able to meet Les Bleus in a World Cup final.
And the Inter Milan winger played a key role in his small Balkan nation reaching its first-ever major final, scoring the equalizer himself and then setting up Mario Mandzukic for the 2-1 extra-time winner over England in Wednesday's semi-final. "Nobody could be any happier than me to play the final against France," the 29-year-old said. "I talked to my mother and she said she dreamed that France would play Croatia and now it is reality."
Originally a product of Hajduk Split's youth academy, Perisic left the club for French side Sochaux at the age of 17. He did not want to go into details Wednesday, speaking only of "a family problem" but he reportedly did so to save his father's chicken farm. He never made the first team but said "I learnt a lot" there.
From 2009 onwards he spent two years each at Belgium's Club Brugge and German sides Borussia Dortmund and Wolfsburg, becoming the Belgian league's top scorer as well as Bundesliga champion and German cup winner. The winger and attacking midfielder Perisic has since moved on to Inter where he has been playing since 2015. He is arguably enjoying his best moments at the international level in Russia as Croatia is showing plenty of resilience.
The team has often underperformed in the past, not surviving the group stage in the three World Cups following the 1998 third-place finish. But this time around Perisic, Luka Modric and company won all three group games, got through back-to-back penalty shoot-outs against Denmark and Russia, beat a host team on the third attempt, and became the first team to fight back from a goal down in three straight knock-out games.
"It was a very difficult game, we all knew what was at stake, how important such a semi-final was for a small nation like Croatia. We showed character like in previous games when we were a goal down. We weren't that resilient in the past," Perisic said. He played down his own achievement, saying: "It is not important who scores, only that Croatia win." But there was also a big sense of pride around the big step from 1998 to 2018. "Twenty years ago I was in my hometown and rooting for Croatia in a national team shirt. I could only dream of playing for Croatia once and to score an important goal," he said.