World Cup: Messi inspires Argentina to knockout victory while Netherlands beat USA on day 14
France play Poland at the World Cup as the knockout stage continues in Qatar. The reigning champions resume their title defence as Les Bleus look to book a place in the quarter-finals, and a potential meeting with England in the last eight.
France qualified for the knockout stages by finishing top of Group D, but were beaten by Tunisia last time out. Kylian Mbappe has been in sparkling form with three goals so far.
They face a Poland side who scraped through to the last 16 as runners-up of Group C, despite their defeat to Argentina. Robert Lewandowski’s side were the definition of anti-football in the 2-0 loss. Follow all the action with our live blog below
France 3-0 Poland
90+3 mons: Five minutes of added time were signalled just after Mbappe added France’s third goal. They’re heading through to the quarter-finals.
Kylian Mbappe now has nine World Cup goals to his name in just two appearances at the finals. That’s a seriously impressive effort.
GOAL! France 3-0 Poland (Mbappe, 90+1)⚽️
90+1 mins: Another fantastic finish from Kylian Mbappe!
Youssouf Fofana brings the ball to the byline on the left side of the pitch before sending it inside to Mbappe. He rolls the ball onto his right foot and curls and powerful strike into the far top corner.
There’s a huge grin on the 23-year-old’s face as he record his fifth goal of the tournament.
France 2-0 Poland
86 mins: Poland win a free kick in the middle of the pitch that Zielinski floats into the penalty area. Adrien Rabiot is up highest to comfortably nod the ball away for France.
The world champions are cruising towards this win.
France 2-0 Poland
83 mins: If France do go on to win this game then they will face the winner of the last-16 tie between England and Senegal.
A lot of the neutrals will be hoping for a France vs England quarter-final but Senegal are no pushovers and they will give the Three Lions an tricky game this evening.
France are controlling this one easily enough. They’ve knocked the wind out of Poland’s sails here.
France 2-0 Poland
80 mins: Two Frenchmen were immediately taken off following the goal with Olivier Giroud and Ousmane Dembele swapped out for Kingsley Coman and Marcus Thuram.
Kylian Mbappe now has four goals in this tournament and leads the race for the golden boot.
France 2-0 Poland
77 mins: Barring a surprising comeback from Poland now you’d think that France have done enough to get themselves into the quarter-finals.
It hasn’t been the most free-flowing performance but it’s been one of confidence and control from the reigning champions.
GOAL! France 2-0 Poland (Mbappe, 74’)⚽️
74 mins: Kylian Mbappe! Just as it looked like France where facing a nervous quarter of an hour the French superstar pops up to double his team’s lead.
France break on the counter-attack with Antoine Griezmann feeding the ball up to Olivier Giroud. He sends it out wide to Ousmanne Dembele before sprinting into the box and drawing away the two centre-backs.
Dembele sends the ball across the pitch and finds Mbappe who touches it into the area then smokes and beautiful finish into the back of the net!
France 1-0 Poland
70 mins: More changes for Poland now as Jakub Kaminski and Grzegorz Krychowiak are hooked in favour of Nicola Zalewski and Krystian Bielik.
Can these substitutes get Poland on the scoresheet?
France 1-0 Poland
67 mins: Poland are just waiting on that one great chance in front of goal. This is almost it.
Frankowski whips a cross in from the left side of the pitch and almost picks out Kaminski in the middle but Theo Hernandez leaps in front of the Polish forward and nods the ball clear.
France 1-0 Poland
64 mins: Robert Lewandowski has drifted out to the right side on a number of occasions during this half but his crosses into the box haven’t been great which kind of defeats the point of moving him out wide.
Youssouf Fofana comes on to replace Aurelien Tchouameni for France as Poland introduce Arkadiusz Milik to come on for Sebastian Szymanski.
