Norway 1 France 4
Should this frontline even be allowed? Obviously I’m joking but it does feel illegal that France are allowed to line-up with three of the best attackers in the World who seem to all be getting along at this tournament, it didn’t take long for France to open the scoring just seven minutes in against a rotated Norway as Mbappe swept the ball out to the right-wing where Ousmane Dembele was waiting and feinted a shot on his left before firing a missile with his right foot past Selvik to put Les Bleus 1-0 up. It didn’t take long for France to double their lead as Thorstvedt was caught on the ball allowing France to break as Mbappe yet again swept the ball across to Dembele who this time shot on his left-foot curling home a beauty to put France 2-0 up in the 20th minute, 90 seconds after Dembele doubled France’s lead Norway pulled one back as Schjelderup laid the ball off to Aasgaard who dummied Upamecao before firing a rocket past Maignan to give Norway some hope in a crazy game. Just when you thought the scoring was finished for the half Dembele grabbed his hat-trick with Tchouameni the assister this time as the Balon D’Or winner feinted twice before curling another beauty into the corner to extend France’s lead again to 3-1 in the 33rd minute, the second half was far quitter with both teams fate confirmed but Jorgen Strand-Larsen did miss a penalty early in the half whilst Doue put the icing on the cake with a header four minutes into injury time. A brilliant way to finish the group stages for the favourites.
France are looking scarier game by game. Les Bleus have looked by far and away the best team at the World Cup so far in my opinion and they showed that yet again today albeit up against a rotated Norway side, even when Michael Olise has on off-day you still have Ousmane Dembele and Kylian Mbappe who can rip you to shreds in an instant which we saw in abundance today. Mbappe turned assister today and it worked a treat as we saw Dembele on the right-wing for the first time in quite some time for club or country, we’ll talk about Dembele a bit later but he was a joy to watch today scoring a superb hat-trick to secure 1st place for France in the group. We saw a midfield pivot of Kone-Tchouameni for France today and I do think it’s their best midfield with Rabiot on the bench but I’m wondering if Deschamps will revert back to Rabiot in the knockouts, a tough decision but I’d stick with Manu Kone. Maxence Lacroix came in for William Saliba but I’d imagine they are just managing the Arsenal centre-backs minutes before the knockouts. Overall a brilliant France performance who look unstoppable heading into the next round.
What can we take from that Norway performance? It’s a tough one really with Norway literally resting their entire starting 11 including goalkeeper but did anyone standout that could potentially have earned a move into the starting 11? The first one is Thelo Aasgaard who I thought was absolutely brilliant in the game and even without the goal would have been Norway’s man-of-the-match in my opinion, other than that it’s quite hard to say anyone else really was that impressive today especially the defence which was pretty abysmal but it was their first game of the World Cup up against some of the best attackers about so I’ll cut them some slack. I suppose what you can take from that performance from Norway is that we’ll probably not see a lot of these players again in this tournament which is probably a positive, shame we didn’t get Mbappe vs Haaland today but I suppose you can’t have it all.
Ousmane Dembele announces himself for France. After getting his first ever major tournament goal for France against Iraq a few days ago Dembele has just put the world on notice that he’s going to be a massive player for France in the rest of this tournament, I think it’s quite similar to the Vinicius Junior situation although Dembele is older but they have both been arguably the best player in the world at points in their careers but never really done it for their country. That has all changed at this World Cup for both of them but Dembele was unstoppable today cutting in off that right-wing, I don’t understand how you’re meant to defend him? Show him on his left-foot he’ll kill you with his right and vice-versa, his speed included with all that makes him an absolute demon on that righ-wing similar to times at Barcelona when he was in full-flow. It hasn’t taken Deschamps long to put Dembele on the right and Olise in the 10 and it is working a treat so far for France, is another Balon D’Or on the cards for Dembele? I wouldn’t be surprised.
What has this result done for the group? So France top the group with Norway in 2nd, Senegal finish 3rd after smashing Iraq 5-0 which should be enough for them to make the Round of 32 but we’ll have to wait and see the rest of the games first, the matches in the next round look like France vs Sweden, Norway vs Ivory Coast and Senegal vs Belgium which look like tasty matchups. The first two games are confirmed but we’ll have to wait for Senegal’s fate to be determined first, you wouldn’t want to face them as they have excellent tournament experience despite having a poor World Cup so far? Are France still the favourites for the World Cup? They’re hard to argue against.