There is little time for celebration in football anymore.
On Thursday night, France qualified for the 2026 World Cup after beating Ukraine 4-0. Twelve hours later, Didier Deschamps and his French squad were travelling to Azerbaijan, their next opponent on Sunday afternoon, but three players were missing from the 26-man squad making that trip: Manu Koné is suspended for the game and went back to his club, AS Roma, early, while Eduardo Camavinga went back to Real Madrid with a minor injury. So, too, did Kylian Mbappé, who needs a scan on his injured ankle.
The France captain was once again the star of his side’s win, notching two goals and one assist. It was the sixth consecutive international appearance in which he scored at least once, an incredible achievement enjoyed only once before in the history of French football. Jean-Pierre Papin went seven consecutive games with at least one goal between September 1990 and October 1991. Mbappé will have the chance to match the record and potentially smash it during the March international break when Les Bleus should face Brazil, as reported on Wednesday, plus Mexico, the United States or Croatia.
However, there’s another record Mbappé is more eager to beat. With his 54th and 55th goals for France on Thursday, he is only two behind Olivier Giroud, Les Bleus‘ all-time record holder. We’ve always known it would be just a matter of time until Mbappé would beat it, although in some ways he already has: If you add his 35 assists to his 55 international goals, that’s 90 goal involvements for him in just 94 caps.
Thursday felt like a special night for France, with another World Cup qualification secured. It’s a tournament in which they almost always contend for the trophy, even reaching the final in four of the past seven editions — an incredible ratio.
The 2018 winners and the 2022 finalists will be in North America for Deschamps’ fourth and final World Cup as France manager. (It’s widely expected that Zinedine Zidane will succeed him, but for now, all we know is that Deschamps will step down following next summer’s tournament.)
Deschamps’ record so far at that competition is exceptional: France reached the quarterfinals in 2014 in Brazil, narrowly losing to the future champions Germany (1-0), triumphed in Russia in 2018 and endured a heartbreaking penalty shootout loss in the final in Qatar in 2022 against Lionel Messi and Argentina. (Mbappé also scored a hat trick that day in what is remembered as one of the best-ever World Cup games.)
And so 2026 will be Deschamps’ last dance, and he’ll want to leave on the highest of high notes. Luckily, he’ll have all the tools and ingredients with which to do it.
This is the best squad he has probably ever had, if you think about all the talent at his disposal in every line. Mbappé himself was saying it last month: «This is the most talented French team I have ever seen. The strongest, not yet, but the one with the most potential, yes. It is infinite. In every position, our players play for the best clubs in the world. But as a team, we are not yet as strong as the 2018 team or the 2022 team.
«Does this current team have the potential to be the best team? 100%. Will it be? It is down to us to make it happen. We have to have ambition with players of this quality» he told L’Equipe Magazine.
Among all this potential, France and Deschamps also have massive experience, by age and caps but also by lived experiences, to call upon. Half of the squad he called up this November was present in that 2022 final. There are many compelling attacking options to choose from, like Mbappé, Ousmane Dembélé, Michael Olise, Désiré Doué, Rayan Cherki, Bradley Barcola or Maghnes Akliouche. How about Christopher Nkunku, Jean-Philippe Mateta, Marcus Thuram or Hugo Ekitike?
Ekitike scored his first goal for France in just his fifth appearance Thursday after a lovely one-two with his captain, Mbappé. Deschamps loves the Liverpool forward, his versatility, his energy, his unusual profile with his size and technical abilities, his desire. Deschamps won’t be able to take all the aforementioned players to the World Cup, but Ekitike, like Akliouche, scored important points in Deschamps’ mind Thursday.
There is so much solidity defensively, with an incredible depth at center back especially, while there is youth and energy, too, in this squad with upcoming stars fighting to make a name for themselves.
And then, of course, there is arguably the best center forward in the country’s history: Mbappé, the captain, the No. 10 who plays as a 9, the only player in history to score four goals in World Cup finals. Mbappé is in the form of his life, carrying Real Madrid and France with already 24 goals and four assists in only 20 matches for club and country so far this season.
On Thursday, he netted his 400th career goal on his 537th game, an impressive milestone to reach at only 26 years and 328 days old. He is the youngest in history to do so — younger than Messi, who was 27 and 95 days (but did it in eight fewer matches), and younger than Cristiano Ronaldo (28 and 335 days, 655 games), Harry Kane (30 and 274 days, 631 games), Karim Benzema (34 and 4 days, 824 games) and Thierry Henry (36 and 30 days, 876 games).
Yet he’s not the kind of guy to rest on his laurels. He always wants more — like another World Cup title in the summer and more goals to come. Always more.
«Four hundred goals? It is great, but people are not impressed with it,» Mbappé told reporters Thursday night. «When you have one guy with 950 [Ronaldo] and one with 900 [Messi], I need 400 more if I want to be in the conversation that will shock people.
«Cristiano Ronaldo’s 1,000 goals? It’s unreal. But we will try the unreal. I have to try: I only have one career!»
