France overwhelmed Croatia 4-2 in the World Cup final at Moscow's Luzhniki stadium on Sunday to lift the trophy for the second time in 20 years.
The French, playing their third World Cup final, were made to sweat initially and were lucky to go ahead when Croatia striker Mario Mandzukic headed an Antoine Griezmann free kick into his own net in the 18th minute, the first own goal in a World Cup final.
Ivan Perisic levelled with a powerful shot 10 minutes later but the Croatia midfielder was then penalised for handball following a VAR review and Griezmann stepped up coolly to convert the 38th-minute penalty and put France 2-1 up.
Croatia fought hard for an hour but gradually ran out of steam after playing extra time in their three previous matches, and goals from Paul Pogba and Kylian Mbappe gave France a three-goal cushion.
Mandzukic pounced on a mistake by France keeper Hugo Lloris to cut the deficit in the 69th minute, making it the highest-scoring final over 90 minutes in 60 years, but Croatia could not find the net again in their first World Cup final.
'SHEER MENTAL STRENGTH'
French coach Didier Deschamps said on Sunday that they managed to overcome mistakes and imperfections with sheer mental strength to lift the trophy for the second time.
But they were made to sweat for about an hour and needed an own goal and a penalty to take the lead.
"My greatest source of pride is they had they right state of mind," Deschamps, who had captained France to the 1998 title, told reporters.
"Today there were imperfections, we did not do everything right but we had those mental and psychological qualities which were decisive for this World Cup."
Deschamps said 14 of his players were World Cup newcomers but were ready to work towards a common goal and were mentally more mature than their age.
"Talent is not sufficient. You need the psychological and mental aspects. Any team is then able to climb mountains," Deschamps said.
"Sometimes I can be hard very hard with them but I do it for them and even though they are young they usually do listen."
Among the newcomers are Mbappe who was voted young player of the tournament and scored France's fourth goal.
"The collective is always important but there are individual players who have made the difference," he said, naming Mbappe and man-of-the-match Antoine Griezmann.
"Those 23 players will now be linked forever whatever happens. They will go different paths but will forever be linked together and from today nothing will be the same professionally because they are world champions.
"We will realise what has happened tomorrow," he said after his players stormed the news conference twice to douse him with champagne. "At the moment they do not know what it is to be world champions."
The 49-year-old coach, who also led France to the Euro 2016 final only to lose in Paris to Portugal, said that defeat may have been key to winning the World Cup.
"Maybe if we were Euro champions we would not have been world champions today. I learned a lot from that defeat," he said.
"The Euro final was different. We tried to stay relaxed this time and the players knew what they had to do and what was at stake."