Sports reporter Matt Turner brings us the final edition of 'World Cup Corner.'

JUST like that, it’s all over.

It feels like only yesterday that I was giddily skipping home to watch the opening game of the World Cup, and the four weeks that have followed it have been a bit of a blur.

Sadly, though, Sunday’s final has brought the curtain down on a superb World Cup – the best I can remember.

There will be many people older than me who will remember better tournaments, but I cannot remember being as captivated by a World Cup as I have been with this one.

England’s run to the semi-finals played a big part in that for sure, but in the face of a torrent of criticism and trepidation, Russia really pulled it out of the bag.

If there has been violence and hooliganism, we never heard about it. The venues were spectacular and everything seemed to run smoothly – a couple of pitch invaders in the final aside.

All it needed was the football to match it, and boy did we get that. One goalless draw in more than 60 games tells you all you need to know.

Who could forget Cristiano Ronaldo’s hat-trick against Spain? How about South Korea striking twice in injury time to send defending champions Germany out in the group stage? What of Belgium coming from 2-0 down to beat Japan thanks to a perfectly-executed 94th minute counter-attack?

England even won a penalty shoot-out for heaven’s sake!

All we needed to top it all off was a brilliant final. France and Croatia certainly delivered on that score.

Even though they broke my heart last week, I will admit that I wanted Croatia to win.

I have enjoyed watching them throughout their stay in Russia and I cannot help but root for the underdog in that situation.

In addition to that, I could sit and watch Luka Modric play all day and not get bored. A truly deserving winner of the Golden Ball award for the tournament’s best player.

I will also admit to not being too enamoured with France as a team. For all their sparkling attacking talent, I thought their style of play was way too conservative.

You could tell that for the first hour of Sunday’s final. Croatia bossed it and were grossly unfortunate to be trailing at half-time.

However, you have to admire the way they went up a gear after that and got the job done.

Congratulations to them. Their young squad will only get better and they could well go on and have a dynasty of dominance.

Now, my thoughts must turn to filling the football-shaped hole in my life…for a couple of weeks at least.

The countdown to Qatar 2022 starts now…