france storms past australia after early scare at world cup as olivier giroud equals record
al wakrah — olivier giroud netted twice to become franc...
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olivier giroud of france celebrates with ousmane dembele scoring their team's second goal against australia.
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al wakrah — olivier giroud netted twice to become france’s joint record scorer as they fought back to put australia to the sword, opening their world cup defence with a 4-1 group d win on tuesday that silenced talk of a holders’ curse. australia had taken a stunning lead at al janoub stadium when craig goodwin applied a super finish to mathew leckie’s cross after nine minutes, but france leveled when adrien rabiot headed home and giroud’s tap-in gave them the halftime lead.
kylian mbappe’s glancing header in the 68th minute was followed by giroud’s 51st international goal three minutes later, drawing him level with thierry henry as france’s all-time top marksman.
didier deschamps’ side, who lead the group d after rivals denmark and tunisia drew 0-0 earlier on tuesday, ended a run of poor starts for world cup holders, after the previous three — italy, spain and germany — all failed to win their openers.
the bad news to come out of the game for france is that lucas hernandez’s campaign appeared in doubt after the defender sustained a knee injury in the win.
“he needs to do some tests but it seems pretty serious. that’s the big black spot tonight,” deschamps said.
hernandez limped off the pitch after staying on the grass for a couple of minutes holding his knee after being beaten to the ball by mathew leckie, who delivered the cross for craig goodwin’s opening goal for australia.
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