France scored early, played through driving rain in Philadelphia, sat through a long weather delay, and simply controlled its game against Iraq for all 90 minutes.
Iraq at times has played well but has now lost its first two games at the tournament as it has made continuous mistakes – first against Norway and now against France.
Here are my takeaways:
The defining stories of this World Cup have yet to be written, but it would not be a surprise if this will be remembered as an international tournament where many of the sport’s greatest players all shined together. Earlier in the day, Argentina star Lionel Messi became the World Cup’s all-time leading scorer with his 18th goal, but that record might not last for long with the way Kylian Mbappé has been playing.
France’s all-time leading scorer opened the scoring against Iraq with a magnificent strike for his 15th career World Cup goal. He is just the fourth player to reach that mark, behind Messi, Germany’s Miroslav Klose, and Brazil’s Ronaldo. Then in the second half, Mbappé took advantage of another Iraqi blunder at the World Cup to score his 16th goal.
The caveat is that Mbappé is still only 27 years old and could still have multiple World Cups ahead of him, and he might eventually become the tournament’s greatest ever player.
This World Cup has been an incredible gathering of historic talent. Along with Messi and Mbappé, you have also seen multiple goals from Erling Haaland, Mohamed Salah, and Harry Kane. That number will only increase as more teams begin playing multiple games.
Much of the attention surrounding this French team is on Mbappé as he now chases Messi’s scoring record, with both stars picking up right where they left off after the 2022 final.
But Michael Olise’s contributions continue to be first-rate as he shows the world why he is one of the best wingers in the world for both France and Bayern Munich. In his last three appearances for France – going back before the start of the World Cup – Olise has three goals and two assists.
(Photo by Terence Lewis/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Another big story for France out of Monday’s game was that 2025 Ballon d’Or winner Ousmane Dembélé scored his first ever World Cup when he put France up 3-0. That was always a question when that burden would finally be lifted, and now it has finally happened. The potential now is that Dembélé is more relaxed and comfortable at the World Cup. That is bad news for any team hoping to stop Les Bleus.
It is far from just Mbappé. His supporting cast, especially Olise and Dembélé, is world-class. They all showed it in this game.
This game featured the first weather delay of the World Cup when a thunderstorm kept players in the locker room for over two hours. It raised the question of how the respective teams would respond.
In this game, France responded very well. Iraq was likely content to only be trailing by one goal at halftime, and the first half took a lot of energy from Graham Arnold’s players to get to that point. France, meanwhile, was likely frustrated to have only one goal at that point.
The long break saw the game revert towards how it was expected to be. France played very nice soccer in the early parts of the second half while Iraq did not look like the team that was keeping it close in the first half.
France’s professionalism was apparent after the delay. France’s players refocused on the original game plan and returned to business as usual. For Iraq, the delay deflated the team’s excitement and momentum.
For the second straight game against a top team, Iraq committed an error in playing the ball out of the back with a shot goal kick. Against Norway with the score 1-1, Iraqi goalkeeper Jalal Hassan played the ball out wide to defender Zaid Tahseen, who then played the ball back to Hassan with Erling Haaland running down on him. It ended with a goal.
Against France, Iraq made a goalkeeper change and went with Ahmed Basil Fadhil. But the same mistake happened as he passed it to Tahseen, who again hit a poor pass back to the keeper. This resulted in a Mbappé goal that put France up 2-0 and squandered any chance of an Iraq comeback.
Playing out of the back is a risky strategy, but it becomes almost reckless when a team is not nearly as talented as its opponent. Arnold deserves a lot of blame for having this mistake happen twice on such a big stage. His team should have respected the talent of Norway and France and played it much safer. His teams would have been much better off.
