Young France can dominate
Moscow
Didier Deschamps’ France side have not always won admirers for their way of playing at this World Cup, but that will not matter to the hundreds of thousands celebrating on the streets back home after their final victory over Croatia.
France won 4-2 at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow on Sunday, with star men Antoine Griezmann, Paul Pogba and Kylian Mbappe all scoring as they lifted the trophy for the second time.
They are the first team to score four times in the final since Pele’s great Brazil side beat Italy 4-1 in Mexico in 1970, and the match was the highest-scoring final since England’s 4-2 victory against West Germany back in 1966.
It was achieved with a brilliantly talented set of players, embodied by 19-year-old Mbappe, not even born when France last won it in 1998 and now the youngest player to score in a World Cup final since Pele in 1958.
He had already lit up this tournament with his electric performance against Argentina, scoring twice in his side’s 4-3 win in Kazan in the last-16.
However, these two encounters do not provide an accurate picture of the way Deschamps’ team have played here.
In their five other games they scored a total of six goals, including two Griezmann penalties and one own-goal. They were also involved in the only goalless draw of the tournament, against Denmark in their last group outing.
Against Croatia, Griezmann’s penalty that gave them a 2-1 lead in the 38th minute came from their first shot on goal of the game, with their opener a Mario Mandzukic own goal. France finished with just 39% of the possession.
With a shrug, Deschamps asked after the game: “Are France beautiful champions? Well, we are world champions and will be on top of the world for four years.”
Deschamps has regularly been criticised, and throughout his sixyear reign in charge, for his style of football. Yet this win follows the near miss of Euro 2016, when as hosts they lost in extra time to Portugal in Paris.
Deschamps is France’s longest-serving coach, and the progress has been constant since he took charge in 2012 and took the team to the quarterfinals at the 2014 World Cup, losing to eventual winners Germany.
This time, while the Germans went out in the group stage, France went all the way.
Deschamps has always been a winner, going back to his playing days when he captained France to glory at the 1998 World Cup and Euro 2000 and won the Champions League with Marseille and Juventus.
He is now only the third man in history to win the World Cup as both a player and coach after Brazil’s Mario Zagallo and German Franz Beckenbauer. –
– Kylian Mbappe and another supremely talented generation of French players may just be getting started after overcoming Croatia to win the World Cup in Russia.
While the 19-year-old is the poster boy for France’s new crop of talent, the make-up of the squad suggests they have the youth and firepower to dominate international football for years to come.
The average age of a fine back four of Benjamin Pavard, Raphael Varane, Samuel Umtiti and Lucas Hernandez is just 23.
Ousmane Dembele, who cost Barcelona €105 million, played for just two minutes in the knockout stages, while France’s other goalscorers on Sunday, Antoine Griezmann, 27, and Paul Pogba, 25, are in their prime.
In scoring his fourth goal of the tournament and France’s fourth in a 4-2 victory in the World Cup final in Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium, Mbappe – named the young Player-of-the-Tournament – became the youngest player since the legendary Pele to score in football’s biggest match.
“I have a story to write, this is just the beginning,” Mbappe warned the world. “I intend to go even further.”
It is not the first time in Russia the lightning-quick Paris Saint-Germain forward has drawn comparisons with the Brazilian great. In scoring twice against Argentina in the last-16, Mbappe became the first teenager since Pele to score more than once in a World Cup.
Just nine players of the World Cup-winning squad were at Euro 2016, although there were just five changes comparing the starting line-ups from the two finals.
Only Nigeria sent a younger group to Russia yet France can boast serial winners at club level in Varane, Mbappe, Pogba and N’Golo Kante. – Reuters
Moscow