Dazzling Mbappe performance sends Messi's Argentina packing in seven-goal thriller

Much was expected of the clash between the two former winners pre-match and it is fair to say the game lived up to its billing and then some.

With the likes of Antoine Griezmann, Lionel Messi, Paul Pogba and Angel Di Maria on the field, it was a 19-year-old in the form of Mbappe who stole the show, scoring twice and winning a penalty.

France were the first to threaten as Griezmann rattled the bar with a fierce 20-yard free-kick with just nine minutes gone, but it didn't take much longer than that for 'Les Bleus' to take the lead.

Two minutes later Kylian Mbappe seized on a loose ball deep inside his own half and gave a devastating display as to his game-changing ability.

The teenager drove from deep, bursting past player after player before seeing his charge halted prematurely by Marcos Rojo in the box. VAR was not necessary, with it as clear a foul as you are ever likely to see.

Griezmann did the honours from the spot, sending Franco Armani the wrong way to open the scoring.

- Brief 'Albiceleste' revival - 

Despite the breakneck speed of the start of the game, it then tailed off, only for Di Maria to spark it back into life four minutes before the break.

Receiving the ball 30 yards out, there only ever seemed to be one thought in his mind as he unleashed an unstoppable drive into the top corner of the net, with Hugo Lloris barely getting within a metre of it.

 

June 30, 2018

That meant the two sides went in level at the break but it didn't stay that way for long after the interval.

Just three minutes into the second period the 'Albiceleste' took the lead, Gabriel Mercado re-directing Lionel Messi's effort beyond a rooted Lloris.

That never looked like being the end of the scoring though, and so it proved as France responded within nine minutes.

First, Griezmann went close as substitute Federico Fazio and Armani suffered a miscommunication at the back, before Benjamin Pavard submitted his contender for goal of the day.

The impressive Lucas Hernandez crossed from the left, with the ball going all the way through to the Stuttgart man on the edge of the box where he unleashed a powerful first-time volley with the outside of his boot that Armani could only watch as it lodged in the stanchion.

- Don't cry for me Argentina - 

The strike was exactly the shot in the arm that France needed and Didier Descahmps' side then proceeded to take the game away from Argentina with two more goals in the 11 minutes that followed.

First, Mbappe slipped an effort underneath Armani at the near post after another centre from Hernandez, before a flowing move that started with Hugo Lloris ended by Olivier Giroud slipping in the youngster on the overlap to stroke home his second in four minutes first time.

Argentina looked shell-shocked and turned to their talisman in a bid to get them back into the game. However, when Messi's chance came he fluffed it. With five minutes to go the diminutive star picked up the ball 30 yards out and beat three men to create the space for a clear strike on goal from 16 yards, but it fell to his weaker right foot and he could neither generate the requisite power nor direction to beat Lloris.

Sampaoli's men did reduce the arrears with just one minute of added time remianing as substitute Sergio Aguero headed home a Messi cross from the right, but it was too little too late for the South Americans who will now join Germany in heading home with their tail between their legs.

France meanwhile, advance to the quarter-finals to face either Portugal or Uruguay, though they will be without the suspended Blaise Matuidi after he picked up a needless booking.

 

June 30, 2018