France defeated England 2-1 today at the Al-Bayt stadium in Al Khor, Qatar to advance to the semi-finals of the World Cup.
This game was anything but boring. It was end-to-end football for 90 minutes where all three goals were deserved. France would come out on top, but England deserved to win just as much, but was unlucky and could not convert late in the game.
France scored first in the 17th minute thanks to Arélien Tchouaméni, the Madridista midfielder. A pass from Antoine Griezmann set him up about 25 yards out. With no time to tee up his shot, Tchouaméni beat the keeper with an impressive 67mph shot – thanks to the technology in the ball that could relay this information to us – that headed right for the bottom left corner of the goal.
England tied the game early in the second half due to a well-earned penalty by Bukayo Saka. He had been playing well all game and knew that defenders would be focusing on him more than others. So when he got the ball inside the box, he dribbled away from the goal, baiting those defenders to take a stab at the ball. Sure enough, Tchouaméni would fall for it and end up tripping Saka. England’s main man Harry Kane converted the penalty, placing it in his preferred upper left side of the goal.
France would take the lead again in the 78th minute after a great cross found the head of Olivier Giroud, who headed it into the left-hand side of the goal. Now the header did take a slight deflection off of the defenders’ shoulder, but they were so close to the goal that the ball looked to be going in regardless.
England would have two late chances to tie the game but was unlucky in each. The first was a second penalty in which Kane ended up freezing the keeper but skying over the goal in the process. The next attempt was a last-second freekick where Marcus Rashford took an excellent shot that would hit the top of the net. About six inches lower and it would have nestled into the upper right corner.
France is now in the semi-finals with the hopes of becoming only the third team (Italy in 34’and 38’ and Brazil in 58’ and 62’) to ever win back-to-back World Cups.
France will face Morocco in their semi-final match on Wednesday, December 14th at 2 pm EST.
Photo: Arélien Tchouaméni – Shutterstock – user: ph.FAB – ID: 2054887901
