In yet another exciting encounter, the defending champions France defeated Poland in convincing fashion in Match 51, to cruise into the quarter finals of the FIFA 2022 World Cup. The third Round of 16 match saw Hugo Lloris’s men clinch an easy 3-1 victory over Poland, riding on goals by Giroud and Mbappe, with the latter scoring twice to see his side through to the quarters. Poland only managed to score a single goal in the match after captain Lewandoski scored the solitary goal for his team through a penalty in the last minute of extra time.
France kicked things off with the ball and immediately went into attack mode, crossing the ball all over the park, looking for the early opener. Poland on the other hand were doing good to prevent an early French goal. Poland did put up a sturdy defense to deny France several potential opportunities until just before the break when Olivier Giroud score the first goal in the 44th minute when Mbappe sent across a pin-point pass through the Polish defense line, which was hammered Wojciech Szczesny who made a diving attempt to stop the powerful strike by Giroud, but failed.
In all fairness, France were relentless on the attack from the very beginning, successfully getting the opening goal just before the first half ended. The goal also made Giroud France’s all-time top-scorer, overtaking Thierry Henry who had 51 goals to his name. The first half eventually ended with France leading Poland 1-0 at half time.
There were a couple of missed opportunities for France as the match went past 70 minutes, with Kylian Mbappe eventually netting it the 74th minute, when he unleashed a missile shot into the top corner from just inside the penalty area. With the match pushed into 10 minutes of extra time, Mbappe once again was able to find the net in the 91st minute as he again pumped the ball into the top-left corner. Szczesny did manage to get some glove on it but failed to stop the ball from getting on. This was his 8th World Cup goal for France and also made him the highest goal scorer of FIFA 2022 for now!
With the match almost entirely over and France certain to make it to the quarters, a little tragedy struck when France conceded a penalty to Poland 9 minutes into added time due to handball infringement in the box that was confirmed following a VAR check. Robert Lewandowski stepped in for the task but shot it straight into Hugo Lloris. A lucky save by France, but the drama wasn’t over as the penalty was called to be retaken because the French defenders rushed in too early, which as pointed out by the linesmen. Lewandowski takes the second shot as well, and successfully sends it past Lloris this time to score his second goal at the World Cup finals. However, the goal barely affected the result of the match as the referee called off the match with this final whistle.
In the end, it was a convincing triple-goal victory for France, as even the last-minute goal from a Lewandowski penalty could not save Poland from crashing out of the tournament. France will now face the winner of the England-Senegal match in the quarter final. To follow more such high-octane actions, controversies, news, and updates from the ongoing FIFA World Cup 2022, stay tuned with 90agency as we bring all the details to you!