Graeme Souness’ mate Olivier Giroud became France’s record scorer on an evening which reinforced how the brilliant Kylian Mbappe will soon overtake him.
“I’m not his biggest fan. Seven games in the last World Cup in the team that wins it and he never had a shot on target. When you talk about mentioning him in the same breath as Thierry Henry – sorry!”
Apology accepted. Graeme Souness curiously stopped short of proposing a medal-based game of Top Trumps with Olivier Giroud – that particular brand of hot-take criticism is presumably reserved specifically for Paul Pogba – but his review of the striker ahead of France’s World Cup group-stage game against Denmark was nevertheless excoriating.
“The goalscoring records are marked up because of the amount of games the teams play in these daft competitions,” Souness continued of a player who now has seven World Cup and European Championship goals to his five in the Nations League.
“I just think it’s an anomaly,” he added, also noting the “large slice of luck” Giroud had benefited from throughout his career, as well as the fact “his record is there for one reason: Benzema being out for such a long time because of all the controversy he’s involved with”.
Only a fool would suggest Giroud has not profited from circumstance; only a contrarian would put his record-breaking achievements solely down to the unavailability of another player.
But even as Giroud unseated Thierry Henry as France’s record goalscorer to send the reigning champions on their way to the quarter-finals, the 36-year-old was still overshadowed. It was a fitting coronation: the eternal foil, the ultimate backing vocalist, the reliable sub-headline bore front-row witness to the player destined to succeed him.
It was a similar story in the tournament opener, when Giroud equalled Henry’s total against Australia but was soon outshone by the electric, irresistible Kylian Mbappe.
With two goals of supreme quality to overcome Poland, as well as the genius assist for Giroud’s historic strike, Mbappe strengthened a legacy that, at just 23 years of age, really ought not to already exist.
The first finish was sublime. A France break, inspired by a ludicrous Giroud touch to pluck a high ball out of the sky, left Mbappe in space on the left with two Poland defenders in his line of sight for a curled shot towards the far corner. So Mbappe adjusted, shuffled the ball out of his feet and cracked an effort back across…
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