On… the night of Kylian Mbappe and Didier Deschamps, France defeated Iraq (3-0) in a 9th group match, which started at midnight and ended at 03:48
Mbappe, in his 100th appearance for France, scored his 15th and 16th goals in a World Cup, surpassing Ronaldo “the phenomenon” (15), “catching” Miroslav Klose and falling behind only Lionel Messi (18).
Didier Deschamps equaled Helmut Schön’s (West Germany) 48-year-old record of 16 World Cup wins as a coach,
Kylian Mbappe opened the scoring (14′) – from an assist by Oliseh -. France dominated the first 20 minutes, Iraq “lost” captain Hussein due to injury and as torrential rain began after 30′, managed to limit France’s threat.
After the players returned from the break for the second half, the Real Madrid striker scored again (54′) from an assist by Dembele, while four minutes later he had a shot on the post with Oliseh. The Bayern striker was the one who “served” – again -, this time to Dembele (66′) for 3-0, a score that did not change until the final whistle of the Canadian referee.
Referee: Drew Fisher (Canada)
Yellow Cards: – Al Amari
The lineups of the teams:
FRANCE (Didier Deschamps): Menian, Koudet (83′ Gusto), Saliba, Upamecano, Dini, Kone, Rabiot, Dembele (68′ Douet), Oliseh (68′ Cherki), Barcola (83′ Alcuci), Mbappe (90′ Marcus Thuram)
IRAQ (Graham Arnold): Wasil, Ali, Zaid Tahsin (60′ Sulaka), Hashem, Doski, Bayes (68′ Farzi), Al Amari (68′ Sher), Zaid (60′ Amin), Iqbal, Hussein (26′ Al Hamadi), Qasem.
