WORLD CUP 2022 – “It’s a beautiful destiny”: Giroud, the incredible providence

A year earlier, in the heart of an autumn which was gradually erasing his trace in the France team, no one would have imagined such a fate. 2021 should have been his swan song and, after all, Olivier Giroud’s career, crowned with a World Cup and an already impressive string of goals, looked great for a striker who was not predestined to such honors.

2022, here he is, the second top scorer of the World Cup in the company of Lionel Messi as he has scored, for the past two weeks, the most important goals of his international career when we least expected it… and while Marcus Thuram had taken off his tracksuit to replace it.

At 36, returned from lots of places where he had been buried far too soon, he offered a semi-final to the French team with a decisive header against the English. He, who was criticized for never scoring in the matches that matter, scored in just over ten days: a double for the first opening of the Blues, the first goal of the 8th and the qualifying goal for the semi-finals. “You know my faith, I have always believed in it. It’s God’s plan (Editor’s note: God’s plan)”, he explained Sunday evening at the microphone of TF1.

And there is indeed to believe in manifestations of some metaphysical forces to try to explain the inexplicable. And simply note like the hero of the evening: “It’s a beautiful destiny.” It’s probably a little more than that. His 54th goal is, without a doubt, the most important of all. “My goal to overtake Titi (note: Henry), it was already exceptional. Now this one, it is perhaps even more beautiful. I have a great ball from Antoine (Editor’s note: Griezmann), and after that was an indescribable emotion“.

Giroud – Griezmann, Griezmann – Giroud…

Griezmann – Giroud, Giroud – Griezmann: the 2016 connection between two men who lost influence after Karim Benzema returned to the national team. Like the Milanese, the Madrilenian had also felt the controllers of the Blues slipping through his fingers and seeing this duo carry the France team to the 7th semi-final in its history remind us that we must never under – estimate legends. “Someone wise told me : ‘we are all twenty years old and the rest is experience’. I play like a twenty-year-old kid, with the mentality of a young kid who has just arrived, who is always hungry. For a moment my body will say stop but now it seems to cash in, so zero limit“, said the center forward last week.

No one today can tell him to stop. Especially not Didier Deschamps who had dared to sideline him for 7 months. “These smiles, this joy on their faces remind me of beautiful things,” concluded the former Gunner, referring to 2018. The Blues won a World Cup without a single achievement from Olivier Giroud. How could this one, driven by its insatiable appetite for goalscorers, decently escape them?