\n<\/p>\n
Kylian Mbappe scored twice – including a Panenka penalty – while Liverpool’s Hugo Ekitike got his first goal for France as they secured a place at the 2026 World Cup with a dominant victory against Ukraine. <\/b><\/p>\n
After a goalless first half, the hosts ran riot in a dominant second period with the glut of goals kick-started when they were awarded a spot-kick after Michael Olise was fouled inside the box.<\/p>\n
Real Madrid striker Mbappe stepped up to send a chipped penalty down the middle as goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin committed to a dive.<\/p>\n
Ukraine will have felt aggrieved as just moments before they thought they might be awarded a penalty. <\/p>\n
After initially waving play on following a challenge by Dayot Upamecano inside the box, referee Slavko Vincic was asked to check the monitor by the video assistant referee (VAR), but opted to stick with his original decision.<\/p>\n
Mbappe twice went close to adding to his goal before Olise fired home to ensure France could breathe a bit easier.<\/p>\n
Mbappe then scored his second of the match from close range in the closing stages, with that goal – the 400th of his career – taking him to 55 for his country, edging him closer to Olivier Giroud’s France record of 57.<\/p>\n
With two minutes remaining Mbappe selflessly set up Ekitike to produce a clinical finish through the legs of the goalkeeper to get up and running for France.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Kylian Mbappe scored twice – including a Panenka penalty – while Liverpool’s Hugo Ekitike got his first goal for France as they secured a place at the 2026 World Cup with a dominant victory against Ukraine. After a goalless first half, the hosts ran riot in a dominant second period with the glut of goals<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1034,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}