This refers to the editorial, “Thrills and spills” (July 17). Indeed, France has shown that fraternité is the most essential thing for the success of a country. Antoine Griezmann, who was named the Man of the Match of the World Cup final, said, “We have different origins, but we are all united. We are many players with different backgrounds, but we have the same goal, we wear the same jersey and we work for each other.” let us learn the lesson that united we stand, divided we fall. Another important lesson from the World Cup is that a country needs to improve its score in human development indices to excel in whatever field it wants to.
All countries that could reach the semi-final stage of the World Cup belong to a very high human development category (1 to 51) with England enjoying 16th position (score: 0.909) in human development index rank, France at 21st (0.897), Belgium at 22nd (0.896) and Croatia is at 45th (0.827) position respectively. While these are surely the ingredients of winning, another important thing to learn is how accepting defeat can be more graceful than victory.
After Croatia lost the final against France, Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic hugged not only every member of her own team but also every member of her opponent winning team. Croatia has undoubtedly captured our hearts.