DOHA, Qatar — To be France is to lose the Ballon d’Or winner to an injury on the eve of the World Cup, and be "forced" to settle for a replacement who’s merely on the verge of becoming your all-time leading scorer.
To be France is to treat a round-of-16 game at the World Cup as a milestone rather than a destination. And to be France is, of course, to have the almost unfair privilege of unleashing the unstoppable Kylian Mbappé.
Les Bleus’ journey, or maybe it’s a stampede, toward a World Cup repeat passed through the Al Thumama Stadium here in southern Doha on Sunday evening, and then it flattened valiant but overmatched Poland. Olivier Giroud, the iconic, high-scoring replacement for the award-winning Karim Benzema, notched France’s opener and helped set up its spectacular second.
