France have arrived as promised in the World Cup final, where they will play Brazil, after a shock Croatian goal within 30 seconds of the re-start finally galvanised Aime Jacquet's team into something approaching the form of champions in waiting.

An eminently forgettable first half flowered into a dramatic finish as Lilian Thuram, one of the foot soldiers in the French ranks, delivered goals that rescued his team from their growing embarrassment. Victory came at some cost, however, for with the venom apparently drawn from the Croatian challenge, Laurent Blanc was guilty of a rugby-style hand-off on his counterpart at the centre of Croatia's defence, Slaven Bilic, and was made to suffer the long lonely walk to the touchline.

Blanc's influence on this French side is enormous and even now it is clear Jacquet will approach Sunday's showdown with Brazil with some trepidation in his absence.

The immediate effect of his dismissal was to plunge the team into a late crisis at a stage when they ought to have been coasting and Davor Suker and Alijosa Asanovic came close to taking the game into extra-time. The victory was greeted with an acclaim which bordered on the delirious and now the organisers can present the final which they had envisaged ever since battle commenced here some four weeks ago. Croatia, in the manner of their calling, offered stubborn resistance. And when Suker gave them the lead in the infant stages of the second half, it seemed just possible that they would silence an 76,000 crowd baying for a home success. Unfortunately for them, a French equaliser materialised within a minute and from that point until Blanc's premature departure, they were living on borrowed time.

The achievement of the French is to stumble into their first final with an attack which, judged by even the most modest standards, falls some way short of adequacy.

Ever since the preliminaries ended, Jacquet's team have found it increasingly difficult to entice opposing defenders into the kind of errors which produce goals.

And despite all the hype, all the brash statements of a new sense of urgency in the front line, they looked as anemic as ever in the top third of the pitch. In those circumstances, they had good reason to be grateful for the presence of Thuram, who after an uneventful opening half, was cast at the centre of the plot as the game built to its enthralling finish. Thuram was directly at fault for the Croatian goal, failing to advance in time as Blanc and Marcel Desailly attempted to spring the offside trap. The inevitable consequence was that Suker, reduced to anonymity in the earlier play, had ample time to control Asanovic's perfectly weighted pass and slide the ball past goalkeeper Fabien Barthez.

In that moment, you could have heard a pin drop in the stadium. But Thuram had yet to move centre stage. Directly from the kick-off, the ball was played towards the edge of the Croatian penalty area and after pressurising Zvonimir Boban into a reckless pass, the right back continued his run to connect with Youri Djorkaeff's perceptive delivery and beat Drazen Ladic from close range. The goal induced the first signs of panic in a Croatian defence which had earlier performed as if they could go all night without conceding a goal. Thierry Henry had a shot parried by Ladic in the 57th minute, but in the event the reprieve was temporary. France, pushing on inexorably, pinned them in their own half and in the 70th minute Thuram curled a shot from the edge of the penalty area between Ladic and his right-hand post. It was a strike befitting the occasion, but when the first full flush of victory has subsided, Frenchmen everywhere will realise that the bigger mountain has yet to be climbed. To scale it, Jacquet must not alone replace the Blanc, but somehow find the means of revitalising tired forwards who have by this stage run dangerously low on selfbelief.

Surprisingly the manager left out Henry from his starting line-up, preferring to go instead with Karembeu in the hope, presumably, that he could add some wit to the attack and get in behind the opposing defence. From an early stage, however, it was evident that his decision was flawed and in the 31st minute he moved to redress the situation by sending on Henry. That made for some small improvement, but the bottom line is that with a substandard attack like this, it's going to take a huge effort by those further back to produce France's first success in football's premier championship Stephane Guivarc'h surprisingly lasted 69 minutes, but in reality he could have been withdrawn before half-time.

As ever, their midfield riches were pronounced. And if Zinedine Zidane drifted from the action for long periods in the second half, it didn't diminish their stranglehold in the central exchanges. Didier Deschamps, compact as ever, tidied up effectively and Emmanuel Petit produced a couple of exciting runs down the left flank. But for all their territorial supremacy, the midfielders never really got among the Croatian central defenders and in that there was cause for concern. As in their quarter-final meeting with Italy, the gap between the middle and front lines was alarmingly big on occasions and it made for a situation in which Stimac, Bilic and Dario Simic presided with unhurried authority throughout the first half.

From a Croatian viewpoint, the great disappointment was Boban's failure to rediscover his best form in this the most important game of his career. There were ominous signs in their earlier outings that Boban was struggling and the conclusive proof was everywhere in evidence here as he sought to impose his presence on the game. Deprived of his inspirational touches, their hopes of finding a way past Blanc and Desailly were quickly blighted and it made for a situation in which the match-winning potential of Suker lay dormant for most of the game. The manner in which the Real Madrid striker took his goal suggested that with better service he might well have turned the night sour for the French and he almost did so five minutes from the end when marginally mis-timing the header from Stanic's cross.

Late in the night, the celebrations for Thuram's golden goals were still ringing around Paris, but for all the hyperbole, the days ahead are fraught with worry.