Mbappe's Brace Sinks Sweden and Pulls Him Level With Messi
Two goals either side of a Bradley Barcola strike sent France through, and moved Mbappe past two Brazilian greats into the record books.
Kylian Mbappe scored twice at MetLife Stadium on Tuesday as France dismissed Sweden 3-0 to reach the World Cup round of 16, and by full time the France captain had rewritten one record and drawn level in another.
His night started in first-half stoppage time. Played in on the left, Mbappe cut inside and drove low inside the far post to make it 1-0 in the 45th minute. Eight minutes into the second half France doubled the lead through Bradley Barcola, who swept a Michael Olise pass into the top corner. Mbappe finished it in the 74th, running onto another Olise ball, beating the offside line and curling a first-time shot past the goalkeeper.
Olise is quietly having the tournament of his life. The Sweden game brought his fifth assist, and both of Mbappe's goals came from his feet. France look most dangerous not when Mbappe drops deep to fetch the ball, but when Olise finds the space behind for him to run onto.
The milestones stacked up fast. That second goal was Mbappe's 10th in the knockout stages of the World Cup, moving him clear of the Brazilian pair Leonidas and Ronaldo, who share eight. His fifth and sixth strikes of this tournament pulled him level with a 39-year-old Lionel Messi in the Golden Boot race. And it was his 18th goal in 18 World Cup matches, leaving him one shy of Messi's all-time tally.
The Messi thread is the one worth pulling. The Argentine reached the all-time World Cup scoring record only last week, and has kept adding to it with a goal in every game of his run. Mbappe, nine years younger, is now chasing a mark Messi is still setting. Two players are writing the same page of the record book at once, one closing his career, the other in the middle of his.
France arrive at the last 16 looking the part. They were ruthless against Norway in the group stage and barely broke stride here, a team that can win ugly and, on nights like this, win handsomely. The reporting from Al Jazeera, ESPN and Sky Sports all landed on the same word: dominant.
Sweden will look back on a first half they endured rather than contested. They sat deep, packed the space in front of their box and held firm until the timing turned against them, the opener arriving in stoppage time at the worst possible moment. Once behind, they had no route back. Sweden mustered little of note after the break and went out of the knockout round without a goal to show for it.
Paraguay are next, and on this evidence they will need something Sweden never found — a way to keep Olise and Mbappe more than a pass apart.
