A very clinical French side continued their march towards successive World Cup triumphs as they defeated Poland by 3 goals to 1. Spurred on by the goals from two strikers at the opposing ends of their careers, Olivier Giroud and Kylian Mbappe, the french move to the Quarter Finals where they will meet the winner of England vs Senegal, a match to be held later tonight.
Olivier Giroud, who scored the first goal to break the deadlock just before halftime, went past the legendary French striker Thierry Henry as the highest-scoring French player. Henry scored 51 goals for France during his illustrious career, today’s goal was Giroud’s 52nd strike for his country.
While Giroud is in the twilight of his career, Kylian Mbappe is still very much at the start of his, even though he is a World Cup winner already in Russia. Mbappe settled the tie with a brilliant strike to get the second goal for France and extinguished any hopes of a comeback for Poland. Not satisfied with that, he put an exclamation mark on France’s performance with another brilliant strike right at the end.
Poland got a consolation goal right at the end when they got a penalty after Kamil Grosicki’s cross hit Dayot Upamecano’s arm. Lewandowski’s initial penalty was saved by French captain and goalkeeper Hugo Lloris but the officials decided Lloris moved too soon. Lewandowski put the retaken penalty past Lloris to make the scoreline somewhat respectable for Poland.
The end result may make it seem like one way traffic in favour of France but it wasn’t always so during the game. Piotr Zielinski had a great chance to give Poland the lead when the score was 0-0 but he shot straight at French goalkeeper Hugo Lloris and the rebound was blocked by French defenders.
However, once Giroud put the French ahead thanks to an Mbappe assist, there was no looking back for France. They totally dominated the second half and Mbappe, who provided the assist for the first goal, stepped up with two crackers of finishes to put the tie beyond Poland.
France now await the winner of England vs Senegal in their Quarter Final, while Poland heads home.
