World Cup: Kylian Mbappe scores twice as France tops Iraq in rain-delayed game
PHILADELPHIA – Add Mother Nature to the list of entities that can’t stop Kylian Mbappe at a World Cup.
The French striker scored on either side of a halftime break that lasted 2 hours and 11 minutes to lead France to a 3-0 win in a Group I match on Monday.
The goals take him to 16 career World Cup goals in his 16th career game. That was the all-time record for men’s World Cup scoring, set by Germany’s Miroslav Klose, until Lionel Messi scored five goals in his first two games. Messi’s brace in a 2-0 Argentina win over Austria Monday afternoon takes him to 18.
But Mbappe is in hot pursuit, one that even two hours of drenching rain in South Philadelphia couldn’t drench.
Not that it’s something on his mind.
“Leo always scores,” Mbappe said. “He has always scored, he scores, and he will always score. If I want to keep up with what Leo is doing, I’ll have to do even more, so no, I’m not looking at what he’s doing at all. I’m only thinking about helping my team.”
The match became the first FIFA World Cup match halted due to extreme weather. As players were heading to the locker room at halftime, the seating bowl was cleared with a severe thunderstorm warning in the area. Fans were instructed to seek shelter on the concourse.
The game was halted at 5:49 p.m. and resumed exactly at 8 p.m., after a second warmup period.
“We spent a lot of time, and emotionally and mentally, it was very difficult, because we had to stay focused, we had to stay engaged in the locker room,” Mbappe said. “It was an hour and a half, almost two hours in the locker room. And staying focused is very difficult, it takes a lot.”
Mbappe had already done damage before that. In the 14th minute, Iraq afforded him too much space at the top of the box. Michael Olise squared a simple pass to him, and Mbappe let rip from 22 yards out, finding the corner of the net past the dive of goalie Ahmed Basil.
The Iraq defense was its own worst enemy in the 54th. Center back Zaid Tahseen played a goal kick across the 6-yard box that caught Basil wrong-footed. It deflected right to Ousmane Dembele, who
French coach Didier Deschamps made three changes from the opening win over Senegal. With it, they addressed two of their prime talking points from a slow-burn 3-1 win over Senegal in which they started slowly.
There was no such quandary Monday, with three shots and general one-way traffic in the opening 10 minutes, then Mbappe’s first goal coming in the 14th.
Much of the French discourse centered on an ineffective opener from Dembele. The 2025 Ballon d’Or winner who plays slightly differently for the national team than for Paris Saint-Germain, was surprisingly invisible against Senegal. It didn’t matter for the French, but he was more active Monday, setting the table for Mbappe’s second and then getting his name on the score sheet in the 66th.
He was subbed out immediately afterward and shared a long embrace with Deschamps.
“There’s no issue with Ousmane,” Deschamps said. “He also needs to readapt to a system in which he doesn’t play throughout the year. … I trust in Ousmane. He knows that. He’s a decisive player.”
Iraq manager Graham Arnold also made three changes. Not among them was the one he joked about Sunday, about trying to deploy three goalies.
He did switch his goalie, pulling team captain Jalal Hassan after he allowed four goals in the opener against Norway, his 103rd cap. That brought Basil into the fray, the hero of the intercontinental playoff win against Bolivia in March. It didn’t help Arnold’s cause that Norway goalscorer Ayman Hussein limped off in the 25th minute.
France managed the challenging conditions better, and they’re going on to the Round of 32 as a result.
“These were things beyond our control,” defender Jules Kounde said. “So, we just had to stay focused, because we knew the Iraqi team would come back with a lot of drive, too. It was almost like a new match, so I think we handled that aspect very well. We started the second half with the same intentions.”