France, reigning world champions, began their defense of their crown with a 4-1 win over Australia on Tuesday in Doha, in a match in which Olivier Giroud scored twice and equaled a record set by Thierry Henry.
Despite Australia taking the lead with a goal from Craig Goodwinthe ‘Bleus’, who lost Lucas Hernandez due to injury, came back with goals from Adrien Rabiot, kylian mbappe and a double of giroudwho came to 51 points with the blue shirt and reached the historic Thierry Henry What top gunners of the selected Frenchman.
With this, France add 3 points that allow you to lead the group D after the goalless draw between Denmark Y Tunisia, Also this Tuesday.
RECORD MAN! Olivier Giroud made history in his double against Australia and in the first match of #Qatar2022overtook Thierry Henry as France’s all-time top scorer. pic.twitter.com/9jFokm6CkN
– SportsCenter (@SC_ESPN) November 22, 2022
Of the poker of big stars present in Qatar (Messi, Neymar, Cristiano and Mbappé), the Frenchman was the second to act and he did so precisely a few hours after his Argentine teammate at PSG suffered the first big surprise of the tournament: defeat 2-1 of the Albiceleste against Saudi Arabia.
And the ‘Bleus’ match began with another bombshell: Harry Souttar’s opening on the right side, Mathew Leckie got rid of Lucas Hernandez’s mark with great control and his cross to the far post finished it off into the net Goodwin (9′).
– Lucas’s serious injury? –
In that play, in addition, the French winger injured his right knee and had to be replaced by his brother Theo Hernandez. The Bayern Munich player left the field on a stretcher and his injury could be very serious.
But Didier Deschamps’ men found the return to the marker in just five minutes. He equalized with a header from rabiot a cross from the left by Theo Hernandez in a play that had started with a corner taken from the other side by Griezmann (27′).
Also read: Denmark and Tunisia sign the first 0-0 of the World Cup Qatar-2022
And shortly after the ‘Bleus’ completed the comeback, in a play that began with a wall between Mbappé and Rabiot and the Juventus midfielder, absent in Russia-2018 due to a decision by Deschamps, yielded to giroud so that, from the heart of the area, they achieved 2-1 (32) from an empty goal.
It was the 50th goal for the veteran French striker (36 years old), who was only one away from Thierry Henry’s absolute record. And time was ahead to try.
– Discreet Mbappé, although a scorer –
The second half began with a spectacular volley shot from Giroud’s back that went wide (50) and 10 minutes later, the current AC Milan forward kicked back a wall to Mbappé that only the action of a defender prevented him from being the third.
Neither did Griezmann, whose shot from the edge was taken by a defender under the sticks (66), but the sentence had to come due to the obvious difference in quality between the two teams.
It was Mbappe, to whom until then almost nothing of what he had tried came out, the one who scored the third goal with a header from Dembele’s center (68 ‘) and shortly after sentenced Giroud, criticized so many times, with a goal that goes down in the history of French football (71′).
