Sometimes the wolves just get to the herd.

Luka Modric stood to one side of the outcrop of the blue and gold stage that had been erected in the middle of the Luzhniki Stadium and tried to summon a smile. But the eyes told more of the story than the lips ever would. Modric stared beyond the bank of photographers and off into a middle distance where he looked at something that was there or maybe something that wasn’t. Only he knew.

He held a golden prize in his hands but it wasn’t THE golden prize, the one that mattered most on this monumental Sunday in Moscow. To his left stood one of the youngest and fiercest wolves. Kylian Mbappe had been named the tournament’s best young player and Modric its best of all ages and the photographers snapped them side by side.

Perhaps Modric was thinking how he hadn’t got nearly this close to Mbappe when the teenager scored the fourth French goal on 65 minutes. He’d got this close to Paul Pogba five minutes prior to that and it still hadn’t proved enough to stop the French pack from overrunning his Croatian side in the highest scoring World Cup final for a lifetime.

Modric had exited stage left by the time the blue crew had fully swamped it as torrential rains tumbled down from the open skies above. Didier Deschamps’ hungry young team howled in delight and rolled in the golden confetti that twisted in the rain and fell too. They’d been ruthless in just the right measure but they’d been lucky too, blessed by a couple of calls from Nestor Pitana that went their way and not Croatia’s.

They’d been lucky too that their captain’s calamitous error in gifting Croatia the game’s final goal had ultimately counted for little. In spite of reservations over their pragmatism, they were very worthy champions and had sealed glory by keeping their nerve on a weird and wild final day for Russia’s World Cup.

Modric had kept his too but on this day it hadn’t been enough and his watch ended in a way he hadn’t wanted it to, with Croatia bereft. A lifetime of toil for his country had brought him this close to bringing the ultimate and most unlikely prize home . . . but just not close enough.

On Saturday, remarkable documentary footage resurfaced on social media that had captured a five-year-old Modric herding goats through the rocky scrubland of his homeland. High in the Velebit Mountains, the little Modric carefully picks his path across the inhospitable terrain and coaxes the herd forward as the camera pans back to give the vantage of the waiting, always watching wolves.

Modric’s life story from child refugee of the Balkan war to the biggest stages in sport has been told plenty during his rise and rise. What was striking about this footage however was how it related to what we’ve seen on the flatter terrain of Russia this past month. This was Modric from an early age not wasting a movement in the wrong direction, making sure that every step was measured for effectiveness, every route surveyed before the right one selected.

Fully 28 years later, the goats have changed and the wolves have changed but for Modric the mission remained the same – get the herd home.

Croats had flocked to the capital for the moment of history that presented itself, finding their own routes to Moscow and getting their hands on golden tickets somewhere along the way. They vastly outnumbered the French at the other end and their players, with the heaviest legs in the land after their marathon mission to this stage, were lifted by it ahead of their most arduous journey yet.

Croatia had torn out of the traps and Modric was pulling strings within seconds, testing the terrain on either side of the defence as both wings saw action early. It took France 12 minutes to win the ball in Croatia’s territory and six minutes later they made it count when Antoine Griezmann duped Pitana, won a free-kick and whipped in a wicked delivery that skimmed off Marion Mandzukic’s head and past Danijel Subasic.

Modric coaxed his crew and they climbed their way back up the hill the only way they know how, crisp smart passing and creating chances. Ivan Perisic took one brilliantly before the half hour but Modric and Croatia couldn’t rest. Not now and certainly not ten minutes later when Perisic’s involuntary handball was ruled deliberate after Pitana had rewound enough replays to convince himself to change his own mind. Griezmann dispatched the penalty and Croatia stared at that same bloody climb again.

They dug in and made some solid steps, Ante Rebic stinging Hugo Lloris’s hands shortly after the interval. But when this day got really weird – four members of the activist group Pussy Riot streaming on to the field and causing a lengthy disruption – Croatia seemed to lose track of their surroundings.

Deschamps’ side smelled blood and perhaps the new world champions’ greatest quality is knowing when to pounce. They’ve been criticised for not making the most of their lethal abilities but you can’t argue with their timing.

So it was that Pogba latched on to his own rebound on the edge of the box and Modric tried to shepherd away the danger. Not on this day. Pogba’s effort curled delightfully beyond Modric and Subasic and France were away. Just like they’d feasted on a stricken Argentina in the last 16 they bit again at Croatia here too, Mbappe adding their fourth soon after.

There was still time for Lloris’s moment of madness but it would prove to be of little consequence to anyone apart from Mandzukic who levelled his own personal account. For Modric and co. the damage was done. Croatia limped as far as 90 minutes but they were done for, this journey proving just too perilous.

“We have no regrets because we were the better team for much of the game," Modric said at full-time. “Unfortunately, some clumsy goals swung it their way. They will be celebrating but we can hold our heads high. You know that despite the defeat you've achieved something big, but it's hard when you come so close and fall short.”

They can indeed hold their heads high. As Modric and the rest of Croatia’s golden generation saluted their supporters before exiting down the tunnel, you focused again on the generation still out there draped in gold as smoke wafting in from the pyrotechnics overhead added another layer to the scene.

Through it all – the sheets of rain and the pall of smoke and the flittering confetti still floating – the potential of this young French team to become an international dynasty shone on. World champions already, and once all this settles, likely hungry to roam on.