Overview
The confrontation between France and Iraq at the Philadelphia stadium could become a memorable milestone in Kylian Mbappe's career.
If he plays, the Real Madrid striker will have his 100th match in the French national team jersey. After becoming the greatest scorer in Les Bleus history in both total goals and goals scored at the World Cup thanks to a double against Senegal in the first match, Mbappe is aiming for an even bigger milestone. That is the all-time scoring record at the World Cup.
However, Lionel Messi is also participating in that race. The double against Senegal helped Mbappe increase the total number of goals at the World Cup to 14, only 2 goals behind Miroslav Klose's record. However, just a few hours later, Messi scored a hat-trick against Algeria to equal the achievement of the German legend.
Changing the schedule in the second round of the group stage makes Argentina meet Austria before France faces Iraq. That means Mbappe will know exactly what he needs to do to get ahead in this historic race.
If Messi does not score against Austria, Mbappe can completely monopolize the top spot in the all-time scoring list at the World Cup if he scores a hat-trick against Iraq.
In the opening match against Senegal, France started quite slowly and even at times faced the risk of being led. However, Didier Deschamps' tactical adjustments made a difference in the second half.
The most notable is the positional swap between Ousmane Dembele and Michael Olise. Initially, Dembele played as number 10 while Olise operated on the right wing, but after changing positions, France's attack became significantly more dangerous.
Olise continued to show excellent creativity when playing behind the strikers. With sharp tactical vision and passes opening up space, the Bayern Munich star became an important link in Deschamps' attacking system. His assist helped Mbappe score the opening goal against Senegal.
For Iraq, this is considered a huge challenge. The Asian representative played quite well in the early stages of the match against Norway before suffering a 1-4 defeat. The gap in class quickly became clear and Erling Haaland punished them with a double.
Iraq has currently lost all 4 matches in their World Cup history and is at risk of becoming the first Asian team to fail in all 5 opening matches at the tournament.
Head-to-head record
This will be the first time in history that France and Iraq have faced each other.
Iraq is showing positive signs when facing European representatives. They have won 2 of the last 4 matches against opponents from the old continent in all competitions, equal to the number of wins that this team has in the previous 16 encounters combined.
Meanwhile, France has gone through a streak of 13 consecutive unbeaten matches against Asian teams in all competitions. However, Les Bleus have lost in both of their most recent encounters, both with a score of 0-1 against China and Japan.
Score prediction: France 2-0 Iraq
The match between France and Iraq takes place at 4:00 AM on June 23 (Vietnam time).
