Olivier Giroud defies critics to match Thierry Henry record and soothe injury-hit France in big World Cup win

Has one person’s aptitude for a task ever been so justifiably questioned, yet so undeniably clear?

Olivier Giroud has, over the years, been a man much maligned, a forward whose killer instinct did not seem all that instinctive, guilty often of taking the ‘scorer of great goals, but not a great scorer of goals’ paradox to its respective extremes.