Hi, I'm Grant Wall, and welcome to the Planet Football Podcast, World Cup Daily. Day 29 of World Cup 2018 is done. It's an off day for games, but not for Brian Strauss and me. We'll look ahead to the France-Croatia final as part of our podcast coming to you daily from Russia

through July 15th.

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In this episode, I'm also joined by E. Sean Thoreur

of the Washington Post.

Onward.

Brian Strauss is back in Moscow from St. Petersburg. Good to have you back in town, even though it feels like you're very far away

when I hear your voice because of the connection.

I am much further away than I was last time, but certainly not as far as the sound might suggest.

I know it sounds like I'm in orbit right now.

I also know what happens when Russians send you into orbit

when you come back you're probably dead and they stuck you and put you in a museum.

At least that's what they do to the dogs. So yeah, I got back to the train back today from St. Petersburg. My hotel has no internet and no air conditioning, but it does have a roof and a place to put my suitcase which is full of dirty

laundry so foam stretch man rally baby I actually felt pretty good about your positivity last night so you know we

have basically four more days here it's Thursday in Russia the The final is Sunday. The third place game is Saturday.

I want to talk a little bit about the finals since we were sort of looking backward last night talking about the semi-finals obviously France Croatia a rematch of the 1998 World Cup semi-finals

and actually some similarities between I would say both of these teams and

their predecessors from 20 years ago. What reminds you about Croatia? It's a good question.

I was going to start with France and I'll get to Croatia.

Okay, let's start with France.

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