Now Kylian Mbappe has accelerated past Pele. Just Fontaine and Olivier Giroud, too. A record-breaking goal in French history came during a landmark brace in World Cups. More immediately, though, it gave France and Mbappe a winning start. His quest to play in a third World Cup final at just 27 is up and running.
Mbappe’s magnificent double, sandwiching a strike from Bradley Barcola, prevented a repeat of 2002 and rewrote many a record book. Mbappe’s goals were his 57th and 58th goal for his country. He leapfrogged his old partner Giroud, who broke Thierry Henry’s France record at the last World Cup, and knew he was only borrowing it before Mbappe claimed it, presumably to keep for rather longer. Some 14 of them have come in World Cups: Fontaine got 13 in one tournament alone while Pele’s dozen took four. That, too, may be another record Mbappe is destined to hold. Miroslav Klose could lose it in the next few weeks.
It is quality and quantity. A stunning opener outlined the talent in the French ranks. Michael Olise was the supplier, Mbappe the scorer. The creator got some 27 assists for Bayern Munich this season, the finisher 42 goals for Real Madrid. Everyone else could envy that firepower, even if there were precious few signs of it in a first half that felt a continuation of Euro 2024, where France struggled to score.
But if this World Cup has featured matches of four quarters, there was something pleasingly old-fashioned in this proving a game of two halves. France were impotent in the first, but not the second. Maybe Didier Deschamps’s invective at the interval worked, or perhaps talent told.
Mbappe’s goals were laced with class. Olise’s reverse pass was delightful, Mbappe’s finish just as precise. It was all about the angles, each showing a geometric brilliance. Then, deep in added time, he unleashed a howitzer from distance.
It meant France need not bemoan a bemusing decision. A few minutes before the deadlock was broken, Sadio Mane slid in on Mbappe, making no contact with the ball, but some with the Frenchman. Referee Alireza Faghani reviewed it on the monitor, seemed to give the penalty and then did not, coming up with the strange conclusion the attacker initiated the contact. Deschamps looked unimpressed.
But officiating controversies and Senegal can go hand in hand after the final of the African Cup of Nations. This time, at least, the result is unlikely to be reversed. Senegal, though, could look at the opening period, remember the shock scoreline that greeted the start of the 2002 tournament, and feel they could have led France again.
There was almost a false start to Mbappe’s tournament. He lost the ball to El Hadji Malick Diouf, allowing Nicolas Jackson to sprint away from Dayot Upamecano and rifle a shot against the foot of the post. Jackson’s finishing can be erratic; he was inches away then and, when he thought he had hammered in an equaliser later, was offside. By the time Senegal did score, Ibrahim Mbaye powering a shot past Mike Maignan, there were 95 minutes on the clock. And it drew an immediate, superlative response from Mbappe.
The finishing was sensational at the end of the second half, but not the first. Ismaila Sarr skied a chance from six yards. It was a glaring miss from a player who has been prolific this season. It proved a turning point.
France had a lone shot before the break, their fewest in 45 minutes of World Cup football since 1966. It seemed a scant return when Deschamps had unleashed his most feared front four, with Mbappe leading the line, Ousmane Dembele behind him and Desire Doue and Olise flanking them.
With Mbappe’s touch betraying him, they looked far less than the sum of their considerable parts in the opening 45 minutes, rather more deadly thereafter. Then they could rue the excellence of a footballer born in France; Senegal goalkeeper Edouard Mendy, who made two terrific saves in a few minutes, denying first Olise, when supplied by Jules Kounde, and then Mbappe, after Olise released him. After Mbappe scored, it was Doue’s turn to be thwarted by Mendy.
When Mendy was beaten again, it underlined the depth of class France possess. Bradley Barcola had just come on when, with his first touch, the double Champions League winner doubled France’s lead. Adrien Rabiot provided a defence-splitting pass, the Paris Saint-Germain winger raced on to it and dinked his finish over Mendy.
And as France flicked the switch from dull to devastating, they indicated why they may return to New Jersey for the final. Two of the other favourites, Brazil and Spain, had started with draws. But neither boasted a centre-forward of Mbappe’s calibre. And very few teams ever in the World Cup have had a man who has scored so often on the global stage.
