France 3-1 Poland; Giroud, Mbappe combine to send France to next round of World Cup 2022
The defending champions France have performed exceedingly well in the Round of 16 against Robert Lewandowski’s Poland, as they defeated them by a scoreline of 3-1. Coming into this game, both sides had lost their recent match and hence neither team had the winning momentum with them which is why predicting a winner was quite difficult for most football experts. However, France were the rightful favourites in this match, but Poland had Robert Lewandowski who could single-handedly decide the result of this encounter.
Since the first whistle, both teams were giving it their all in order to take the lead and put pressure on their opponents, Les Blues were really on top of the game with their pressing and possession, but the Polish side were very well organised and were restricting the incredible attack of France.
Giroud broke dead lock for France
But just before halftime, at the 44th-minute mark, Deschamps’s side finally found a breakthrough and took the lead in the game, courtesy of a brilliant finish from Giroud. With that goal, Giroud became the all-time top scorer for France by overtaking the legend himself Thierry Henry.
In the second half, Poland really needed a miracle to win this game, their only hope was to take this game to penalties and then their keeper Szczesny who has been incredible in the tournament would save them. However, in their way there was the man Kylian Mbappe who scored two of the best goals in this World Cup in order to kill the game and take his nation to the quarter-finals.
Poland scores consolation goal
However, Poland still got a penalty in added time and got a chance to score a conciliation goal in the game and go out of the tournament by giving their fans something to cheer upon. So to the spot, came their leader Robert Lewandowski who surprisingly missed the penalty, but Lloris was off his line and hence it had to be retaken.
The second time, there weren’t any mistakes from the striker and he scored by smashing in the bottom left corner. All in all, now that the French have qualified, they’ll face either Egland or Senegal in the next round.
