Kylian Mbappe’s brace, Olivier Giroud’s goal, and France’s in the quarterfinals. The only thing that Poland managed to do was Robert Lewandowski’s well-executed penalty.
The third quarter-finalist is France. Didier Deschamp’s team beat Poland 3-1. In the 44th minute, Olivier Giroud scored an opener with an assist from Kylian Mbappé. With this goal, the attacker of Milan became the best scorer in the history of the French national team with 52 goals. Giroud, who did not play for Le Bleu until he was 25, broke Thierry Henry’s record of 51 goals.
Czesław Michniewicz’s team, which has not played in the World Cup playoffs since 1986, was mainly concerned about the safety of its own goal, although it still could not keep a clean sheet in half.
In the second half, Mbappé scored two more goals for Poland, who went forward more actively. Ousmane Dembele and Markus Thuram provided the leader of the topscorers’ dispute with the assists. The PSG forward already scored 9 goals at the World Cups.
The only thing that Poland managed in the remaining time of the match was a prestige goal. At the end of added time, Robert Lewandowski shoot twice from the penalty spot. Lewy’s first try was stopped by Hugo Lloris, although the French goalkeeper did not have his foot on the line at the time of the shot. In the second attempt, Lewandowski was more convincing. In the end, it is 3-1, and the Le Blue will meet the winner of the England-Senegal pair.
Interestingly, the president of France predicted the result of the match and the exact score. Speaking to Le Parisien, before the match, Emmanuel Macron indicated that France would have won 3-1 despite Lewandowski’s goal.
- Kylian Mbappé leads the topscorers’ list with 5 scored goals.
- At 23 years and 349 days, Mbappe became the youngest player since Pele to score 5 World Cup playoff goals. Pele achieved this result in 1958, at 17 years and 249 days.
- Kylian Mbappé became the first under-24 player to score 9 goals in the history of the World Cup.
- Kylian Mbappé participated in all of France’s last 7 goals – scored 5 and assisted 2.
- Olivier Giroud scored his first goal for the French national team on February 29, 2012.
- Olivier Giroud overtook Thierry Henry (51) and is now the sole leader of Le Bleu’s scorers with 52 goals.
- In the history of the World Cup, France was in the last 16 6 times and managed to go to the next stage every time.
- Under Didier Deschamps, France lost just 1 of their 7 playoff games in 2014 against Germany in the quarter-finals.
- At 36 years and 65 days, Olivier Giroud became the second oldest player to score a goal. The record for the goal scored in 1990, at the age of 38 years and 34 days, belongs to Roger Milla.
France will play the next match on December 10 against the winner of the England-Senegal competition.
