…Set up a likely meet with England or Senegal in the quarterfinals.
France on Sunday got a sweet revenge over Poland who last defeated the now two times world champion 40 years ago, precisely 1982 at the world cup. The celebration was sweeter as the team held hands together and greeted their fans who almost brought down the stadium with their deafening noise of victory.
The Mbappe/Giroud combination was a pain to the Polish team. Olivier Giroud a well experienced attacker scored 44th minute from a Mbappe connect to put France in front for first goal and compensate for the Giroud unforgiveable miss in the 28th minute where his trickiest shot hit the upright bar and rolled into touch for a goal kick to Poland.
The Giroud curtain raiser which is his 52nd goal for France came breaking the record of Igwe (a title meaning king in Nigeria given to) Thierry Henry the legend of Arsenal. He eventually made it 53 goals for France and is the highest goal scorer in Qatar with 5 goals while others like Messi, Enner Valencia, Marcus Rashford, Cody Gakpo, Alvaro Morata and Olivier Giroud have 3 goals each.
The Giroud goal was very stylish as he had to twist his left foot to score the goal. I report that the Poland Goal Keeper, Wojciech Szezeny had to go inside his net, not for the ball but water bottle to gulp, not sip water meaning he had been stressed for psychologically you gulp water when you are stressed or tired. I wish I could ask the 88,236 fans that watched the match whether they saw him gulp the water like a Camel. Woj is the 1.96m tall 32 year old (born 18th April 1990) in Warsaw current goal keeper of the Old Lady, Juventus of Italy.
Rampaging Mbappe whose name is synonymous now to football terrorism with his deft touches and mesmerizing dribble runs got a brace in the match to drown the Polish team first when he blasted a ballistic missile 25m away from goal at 74th minute after receiving a pass from Giroud off the Ousmane Dembele telegraphic pass. As Giroud was pulled off, Mbappe got a good pass from Marcus Thuram 90+1 minute to get his brace and 3-0 to France.
Poland got a consolation penalty 90+9 minute and Robert Lewandoski first played a poor kick but Ref Jesus Saez of Venezuela approved a retake which he scored to make final scores 3-1. Poland out of World Cup and may be the last for Lewandoski.
To show the intensity of the match to Poland who were lucky to end the match 1-3, France had 8 shots on target to 3; 6 off target to 4; Poland had to be blocking shots and players for on record they blocked 5 goal bound shots, conceded 7 corner kicks and played just one; suffered 7 counter attacks from France to them not having even one counter attack, the Polish goal keeper had 5 saves to France one save meaning the Polish goal keeper was not well defended with all the blockings and was under pressure and of course there were two yellow cards to Poland against France one meaning the Ref was probably lenient.
France emerged top from Group D beating Australia 4-1; beat Denmark 2-1 and lost to Tunisia 0-1. The French chalked 6 points with +3 Goals difference; Australia was Runners Up with 6 points and -1 goals difference. Poland played goalless with Mexico; beat Saudi Arabia 2-0 and lost 0-2 to Argentina to become Runners Up in group C with 4 points and Zero goals difference after group winner Argentina that made 6 points and +3 goals difference.
Researching information for the France versus Poland was perilous and most tiresome. They met 16 times with France winning 8 times, Poland won 3 times and there were 5 draws.
The history goes thus: 22nd January 1939 Fra 4-0 Pol; 28th September 1960 Pol 2-2 Fra; 11th April 1962 Fra 1-0 Pol; 22nd October 1966 Fra 2-1 Pol (Euro Champ Qualifier); 17th September 1967 Pol 1-4 Fra (Euro Cham Qualifier); 7th September 1974 Pol 0 Fra 2; 24th April 1976 Fra 2-0 Pol; 10th July 1982 Fra 3-2 Pol (WC 3rd place play off for Europe); 31st August 1982 Fra 0-4 Pol; 15th August 1990 Fra 0-0 Pol; 14th August 1991 Pol 1-5 Fra; 16th November 1994 Pol 0 Fra 0 Euro Champ Qualifier; 16th August 1995 Fra 1-1 Pol (Euro Champ Qualifier); 23rd February 2000 Fra 1-0 Pol; 17th November 2004 Pol 0-0 Fra and 9th June 2011 Pol 0-1 Fra.
Tomorrow Monday at 4pm, Japan will meet Croatia and at 8pm Brazil will line up against South Korea.
Eniola Olatunji reporting.
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