European Championship qualification
14-0 spectacle: France’s “homage to football”
France’s superstar Kylian Mbappé celebrates a goal. photo
© Daniel Cole/AP
It’s a memorable evening in Nice. The Équipe tricolore wins with a historic result, with dream goals and superlatives. But also a little mood dampener.
The victims of the French scoring frenzy were the national team of Gibraltar, 198th in the FIFA world rankings between East Timor (197th) and the Bahamas (199th). In the end it was 14-0 in Nice. Never before had a team won more in a qualifying game for a European Championship or World Cup.
“We said in preparation: There are two options. We win and play well. Or we win and play very well,” said coach Didier Deschamps. The result next to the result: dream goals, like Olivier Giroud’s overhead kick as the decisive final point in stoppage time, with which France replaced the German national team with their record victory in September 2006 in the European Championship qualification in San Marino. The DFB team won 13-0.
No laissez-faire, no quarter
Or a shot from 42 meters from Mbappé. The 24-year-old scored a total of three times and now has 300 competitive goals in his still young career. Neither Argentina’s world champion Lionel Messi (36), nor Portugal’s goal giant and superstar Cristiano Ronaldo (38) or Brazil’s Neymar (31) could do that at this age.
France had long since qualified for the European Championships in Germany next year. So they could have been a bit laissez-faire after an own goal of all things had already started the goal festival in the third minute.
Otherwise players think about vacation or taxes
Ex-Bundesliga professional Marcus Thuram made it 2-0 in the fourth minute and in the 16th minute, Warren Zaïre-Emery, aged 17 years, eight months and ten days, became the youngest French debutant in almost 110 years to score let celebrate. However, the joy was marred by an injury to the teenager after a foul – the visiting player was shown a red card.
“This is a result that does not correspond to the norm of modern football,” wrote France’s sports newspaper “L’Équipe” after the 14-0 win: “When everything is so easy, it always ends with the players getting a little bored and think about other things like vacation, taxes, Champions League.” But Les Bleus didn’t want to miss this opportunity, according to Sud Ouest.
The players asked him at halftime where the record stood, Deschamps said after the game. The team was “relentless,” said L’Équipe. And former French international Alain Giresse raved about a “homage to football.”
Coman’s record of a record game
France’s selection, world champions in 1998 and 2018 and runner-up most recently in Qatar, European champions in 1984 and 2000, won 10-0 against Azerbaijan in the European Championship qualification in September 1995. Since Saturday there has been a different record in the lists. “A perfect evening,” said Bayern professional Kingsley Coman, to whom he contributed two goals.