Billed as one of the biggest games of the group stage, France and Senegal certainly tried their best to live up to that expectation as they matched wits in the afternoon sunshine of East Rutherford, NJ, with the favorites holding form and emerging as 3-1 winners in the end.
But that scoreline alone hardly does justice to the ebbs and flows of the match, with the Champions of Africa left to rue their multitude of missed opportunities in the first half before France’s incredible depth in attack made
the necessary difference. Kylian Mbappé broke the deadlock just after the hour-mark (not long after Sadio Mané was inexplicably given reprieve for fouling Mbappé in the area, even after VAR review), then Bradley Barcola came off the bench to double their lead heading into the final ten minutes. But the drama was not done, with the teams trading absolute wondergoals in stoppage time, first Mbaye, then Mbappé … simply mbamazing.
Maybe Nicolas Jackson needed to add an ‘Mb’ to his name as well. He had Mike Maignan beaten twice, but was denied first by the post and then by the offside flag. Another chance saw him guide a first-time finish just over the bar. There’s little glory in missing chances of course, but overall, it was a good performance from Jackson, doing a lot of the positive chaos-agent things and very little of the negative chaos-agent things. (And also, he was hardly the most wasteful with Ismaïla Sarr also on the pitch.)
Jackson was also the only Chelsea player to be involved, with neither Malo Gusto nor Mamadou Sarr getting on the pitch. Senegal might want to reconsider that latter decision: their defense offered very little resistance once France decided to start playing.
The highlights of this one are certainly worth your time!
