A hat-trick from Ousmane Dembélé and a header from Doué saw France beat Norway 4-1 in Boston in the FIFA World Cup Group I match for first place, but the Norwegians didn’t look too disappointed in the end either. Both teams came to the match with two wins and 6 points each, so their progress was not in danger. This was more visible in the Norwegians, the national team captain Ståle Solbakken changed the team a lot compared to the previous match against Senegal, the two biggest stars, Haaland and Ødegaard did not even stand.
The French, on the other hand, came out with their strongest team, only the national team captain Didier Deschamps was absent due to the death of his mother, and instead of him, assistant coach Guy Stéphan sat on the French bench. The team originally wanted to wear black armbands out of respect for Deschamps’ mother, but this request was rejected. rejected by FIFA.
The fact that the French, who traditionally relax their last group stage matches in the knowledge of a sure advance, will take the game much more seriously than their opponents this time, was already visible at the beginning of the match, the tone was immediately set by Mbappé’s goal post, and then Dembélé’s first goal came in the 7th minute after a beautiful solo.
The Ballon d’Or striker of Paris Saint-Germain doubled the advantage in the 20th minute after an assist from Mbappé, and although the quality difference between the French attackers and the Norwegian defenders was clearly visible, after the middle start, Norway made an unexpected improvement, the score was 2-1 with Thelo Aasgaard’s goal, and for a short time it seemed that Norway might still have something to earn in this match.
This lasted until the 32nd minute, until Dembélé’s third goal, for which Mbappé provided the assist again.
Dembélé’s hat-trick is the second fastest hat-trick in the history of the World Cup, only the Austrian Erich Probst was faster than him, he scored his third goal in the 1954 World Cup in the 24th minute, when Austria defeated Czechoslovakia 5-0. Of course, if we look at the time between the first and third goals, there are even faster ones, for example László Kiss, who scored his three goals in just over 7 minutes in Hungary’s 10-1 victory over El Salvador in 1982. 25 minutes passed between Dembélé’s first and third goals, which is a great speed, but not enough for the heir to the podium. However, by all standards, this is the fastest hat-trick of this vébé so far, and thus Dembélé moved to the second place in the vébé’s goalscoring list with his 4 goals alongside Mbappé, Vinícius and Haaland. (Messi leads this list with 5 goals.)
In the second half, the Norwegians tried to absorb themselves, in the 48th minute, Bobb broke into the French penalty area, and because Theo Hernandez brought him down, the Norwegians were awarded a penalty. However, Larsen’s shot was particularly weak, goalkeeper Mike Maignan saved with ease.
Not long after, Maignan saved again with a bravery after a Norwegian attack, catching up with Selvik on the other side, who, in addition to the three conceded goals, made several important saves.
The inclusion of Maignan in the game also indicated that it was no longer so important for the French to spread themselves apart in the second half. Assistant coach Guy Stéphan was more focused on getting as many opportunities as possible for his players.
The second half, which turned out to be quite boring, was closed in extra time by Désiré Doué’s first header of his life, setting the final result. The Norwegians weren’t too disheartened either, their stars can turn to the next match rested, Ivory Coast will be waiting for them in the top 32.
In the other match of Group I Senegal beat Iraq 5-0Iraq is definitely eliminated with 0 points, and Senegal can continue in third place if 3 points are enough.
