A couple of days ago the France squad posed for a photo in which each player returned to their roots by donning the shirt of their first amateur team. For Olivier Giroud, now France’s all-time male record goalscorer, it was the red of Froges Olympique Club, whose clubhouse 20km from Grenoble in south-east France is appropriately decorated for the World Cup. For Kylian Mbappé, the man who will surely overtake him, it was the green of AS Bondy, a team in a northern suburb of Paris. Even on Giroud’s big night, the masterful and electric Mbappé was able to muscle in on the headlines as France advanced to the quarter-finals.
For Mbappé, a superstar aged 23 and already a world champion, only another 20 goals to go. A poster of Giroud accompanied with the words Au Coeur Les Bleus – the Blues in the heart – is pinned beneath bunting and a tricolour scarf in the poky Froges clubhouse. Children gathered there to watch France beat Denmark, an evening that belonged to Mbappé, and although Mbappé got in on the act quite magnificently against Poland, this was an occasion Giroud will always cherish.
