France booked their place in the World Cup final last night with a 1-0 win over Belgium - and we'll find out later today who their opponents will be on Sunday. "That a second half header by Samuel Umtiti from a set piece decided this gripping game somehow doesn't seem to do the whole affair justice", explains Emmet Malone who was reporting from the St Petersburg Stadium. He'll be there again tonight for the meeting of England and Croatia, as will Ken Early. The latter explains in this morning's pages that Gareth Southgate has become the new Winston Churchill as England dream of football coming home: "Four weeks of World Cup success, and England, once blind, now sees in Southgate the leader they've been waiting for all along, a 21st century Churchill with none of the whiskey-sodden imperialist bluster or embarrassing historic quotes about using poison gas on uncivilised tribes."
Away from the World Cup action and Cristiano Ronaldo has agreed to join Juventus, after the Italian club agreed a €100m fee with Real Madrid. Ronaldo wrote an open letter to the Spanish club; "Real Madrid has conquered my heart, and that of my family, and that is why more than ever I want to say thank you." Cork City lost 1-0 in the first leg of their first qualifying round for the Champions League, after a late Legia Warsaw goal at Turner's Cross. They go to Poland for next week's second leg needing at least a goal to avoid dropping into the Europa League.
Ahead of the start of the Super 8s on Saturday afternoon, Darragh Ó Sé explains why there are too many strings to Dublin's bow for the likes of Donegal; "People give out about the size of county training panels, but when you examine the demands that will be placed on the eight squads in the coming weeks, big is beautiful, especially when combined with depth of quality. In that respect no one can compete with Dublin."
The seven times Wimbledon champion Serena Williams went a set down to Camila Georgi after a breathless first set before clamouring back into the match to win 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 and book her place in the semi-finals. Today Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Rafa Nadal are all in quarter-final action. The latter will face Juan Martin del Potro, and the Argentinean is just thankful to be competing at this stage after overcoming a series of injury problems; "Del Potro underwent left wrist surgery in 2014 and made his comeback in January 2015. He contested two events in 2015 before having further surgery on his left wrist. He made his return to the game after his third wrist injury in 2016 and here he is facing Nadal, not having played a warm up event on grass because of a groin injury."
Fernando Gaviria took his second stage win in the 2018 Tour de France, winning stage four from La Baule to Sarzeau on the Golfe de Morbihan in Brittany. Ireland's Dan Martin moved up six places to 33rd overall, but stays one minute 38 seconds behind race leader Greg Van Avermaet (BMC Racing Team). Wednesday and Thursday's stages are sufficiently lumpy to hand Martin an opportunity, and he will look forward to getting onto terrain which suits him better than the mainly-flat stages thus far.
