🇫🇷 France's World Cup story.

The story · Eliminated semi-finalist; third-place match still to come

France won all three Group I matches: 3-1 against Senegal, 3-0 against Iraq and 4-1 against Norway. Kylian Mbappé scored two braces in the first two games; against Iraq, his goals were separated by a weather delay of nearly two hours. In the round of 32, France beat Sweden 3-0. It then needed a 70th-minute Mbappé penalty to eliminate Paraguay 1-0 in the Philadelphia heat. France defeated Morocco 2-0 in the quarter-final: Mbappé scored after missing a penalty and then contributed to the move for Ousmane Dembélé’s goal. The July 14 semi-final, however, ended in a 2-0 defeat to Spain through goals by Mikel Oyarzabal and Pedro Porro. France was due to play England for third place on July 18. Before the semi-final, it had won six matches, scored sixteen goals and kept clean sheets in all three knockout rounds. Mbappé had eight goals, level with Lionel Messi before the second semi-final.

From the tournament notebook

Against Iraq, Mbappé scored two goals nearly three hours apart because of a long thunderstorm delay.

Sources ↗

Reporting through 2026-07-15