Norway 1-4 France: Les Bleus underline their World Cup achievements as Ousmane Dembele’s hat-trick moves them into the Golden Boot race alongside Kylian Mbappe
Ousmane Dembele scores a hat-trick and joins the Golden Boot conversation
The match was advertised as Kylian Mbappe vs. Erling Haaland, but it will be remembered as Ousmane Dembele’s show.
A powerful drive and two sweet left-foot swings effectively brought the Group I final to a close in just 32 minutes. Before the Iraq game, Dembele had scored zero international goals in major competitions, but now he has four.
In this spectacular and deadly form, freestyle France will require some suspension. Erling Haaland warned us four days in advance what was going to happen.
After fielding Senegal in New Jersey, he appeared to downplay the possibility of a salivating shootout between the two biggest guns in world soccer.
“They’ll probably beat us, they’ll probably win the whole tournament,” said the Manchester City powerhouse. He certainly wasn’t wrong.
Regardless of the 10 Norwegian changes or not, Les Bleus have the firepower, X-factor and synergy to score a ton of goals and break through almost any defense this World Cup.
Skeptics speculated that this might just be a star-studded team of dedicated people.
Instead, there is an irresistible sense of togetherness, and moreover, the 2018 winners will be driven by the prospect of going the distance and memorializing absentee manager Didier Deschamps’ late mother, Ginette. Norway coach Starre Solbakken seems to believe there is a path beyond a second-place finish.
Ivory Coast and Brazil famously played in the 1998 final, which the Vikings beat 2-1 in Marseille, but it was important to preserve the fitness of key players such as Haaland and Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard before Tuesday’s rematch in Dallas.
Erling Haaland was rested after the match against Norway, but he cheered on Les Blues to fight until the end.
Still, unfortunately, France have the star quality to absorb injuries to their big players, while Norway, playing their first World Cup in 28 years, does not.
However, within 22 seconds it looked like everything could turn pretty ugly when Mbappé cracked the crossbar.
Norway were fortunate to survive an early scare, but a moment of brilliance from Dembele put them behind six minutes later.
The Ballon d’Or winner faked a shot, toying with Fredrik Andre Bjorkan before firing past helpless goalkeeper Egil Selvik.
Dembele wasn’t hanging around trying to get second place either. Gathering the ball on the right side, he slipped inside and fired a powerful shot into the bottom corner of the goal.
Thero Asgaard, whose mother is French, pulled one back just a minute later with an arrow into the net, before Dembele made it three more with a superbly accurate low finish from the right corner of the Norwegian box.
Crystal Palace striker Jorgen Strand-Larsen had a penalty saved by Mike Maignan after Oscar Bobb was fouled, but beyond that France didn’t have to shift out of second gear.
Desire Due added a fourth goal in stoppage time, heading in Bradley Barcola’s cross from the back post.
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