MBAPPE LEADS THE NEW WORLD ORDER
PSG star at the double to put France in last 16... but Denmark are in danger
NEYMAR is at the centre of another injury scare at the World Cup and Cristiano Ronaldo does not even have a club to call his own. The old order is rapidly fading and as the battle for the succession quickens, Kylian Mbappe is leading the charge of the pursuers.
At Stadium 974, an island of austerity amid the lavish construction projects of this World Cup, an arena built from old shipping containers, Mbappe dazzled the supporters who had streamed here to the shoreline of the Arabian Gulf with both of the goals that took the world champions beyond a stubborn, dogged Denmark side whose resistance was only broken late on in their 2-1 defeat.
Mbappe and Ecuador’s Enner Valencia are now the tournament’s leading goalscorers with three goals each but Mbappe’s brace here took him to seven goals in World Cups already. Only he and Pele have scored that many in football’s biggest competition before they reach the age of 25. He has now scored 50 goals for club and country in a calendar year for the first time.
Perhaps it has harmed Mbappe’s ability to emerge from the giant shadow cast by Lionel Messi and Ronaldo that he has played his football in the comparative backwater of Ligue 1 with Paris SaintGermain and that his club has never been able to win the Champions League but when he reaches the big stage, just as he did in Russia four years ago, he has a habit of bestriding it.
He was quicksilver and brilliant last night, a darting, mesmerising, elusive presence that turned even the redoubtable Denmark defence to rubble. ‘I don’t see a weakness,’
Alan Shearer said on BBC 5 live during the game. Neither of his goals were spectacular but both were finishes born of improvisation and instinct. He took the 2018 World Cup by storm and he is threatening to do the same here.
France’s victory, on the back of their opening win over Australia, means they have already qualified for the last 16 with one game to spare. If they get through their second-round tie and if England recover well from their blip against the USA, the two sides may yet meet in the quarter-finals. It is not a prospect that Gareth Southgate and his squad would relish.
France look just as good, perhaps better, than they did in Russia in 2018, even without the injured Karim Benzema, N’Golo Kante and Paul Pogba. They are beautifully balanced and Mbappe’s supporting cast boasts the grace and elegance of Antoine Griezmann, the virtuoso skills of Ousmane Dembele and the aerial strength of Olivier Giroud.
Brazil may be the favourites but it is not hard to imagine France becoming the first since Brazil did it in 1958 and 1962 to win back-toback World Cups. France had come close to opening the scoring in the 13th minute when Griezmann, whose deadball delivery is so flat and fast and dangerous and accurate, curled in a corner from the France right which was flicked on by Raphael Varane at the near post. Giroud tried to prod it in at the back post but Joakim Maehle made a superb intervention to hook it off the line. Griezmann was the architect again a couple of minutes later when he picked the ball up deep inside the France half and clipped a brilliant ball inside Andreas Christensen with the outside of his left foot. It curled around Christensen and Mbappe raced on to it. It looked as if he would be clean through on goal but Christensen brought him down before he could progress any further. He was booked.
France kept pressing. Dembele had made a bright start on the France right and now he turned cut in from the touchline and curled a ball to the near post. Adrien Rabiot met it firmly with his head and the ball was hurtling into the net before Kasper Schmeichel produced an acrobatic flying save to push it out. Denmark centre forward Andreas Cornelius, whose only mark on the match up to this point had been made on the shin of Giroud with his upturned studs, brought a brief respite when he whistled a shot just wide. Then Rasmus Kristensen nutmegged Theo Hernandez and drilled in a cross that no one met. Kristensen was not impressed.
Mbappe should have done better than blaze a cross from Dembele high over from the edge of the area. When he tried to atone for that, on the stroke of half-time, slamming in a goalbound shot from 20 yards out, it hit Giroud on the shoulder as he tried to duck out of the way and trickled out for a goal kick.
Denmark had more of the ball after the break without ever threatening the France goal and when the World Cup holders weathered that spell of pressure, they broke the deadlock. Griezmann should have scored when he burst clear but he lifted his shot high over with only Schmeichel to beat. That was
only a brief reprieve for Denmark.
Mbappe, who has been full of verve and brilliance in the early stages of this tournament, broke down the left and cut inside on to his right foot. Theo Hernandez, deputising for his injured brother Lucas, burst past him and Mbappe played the ball inside the full-back for him to run on to. Hernandez cut it back into the path of Mbappe and Mbappe stabbed it past Schmeichel with the help of a slight deflection. It was his 30th goal for France.
Six minutes later Denmark were level. Christian Eriksen floated a corner in from the right and Joachim Andersen rose majestically at the near post to nod it across goal. It bounced once before Christensen, the ex-Chelsea defender, ran and thrust his head among flying feet to score.
Aurelien Tchouameni flung himself at a Griezmann corner and even though Maehle had turned his back on the ball, it hit him and bounced out for a corner. Rabiot hooked a spectacular overhead kick just too high and, at the other end, substitute Braithwaite tried to turn in a cross at the near postbut clipped it inches wide of the post. France would not be denied. Four minutes from the end Griezmann again played in an undefendable cross and Mbappe rushed to meet it. He got ahead of his marker and even though he could not get a boot or his head to the ball, he nudged it past Schmeichel off his thigh.