Norway 1-4 France: World Cup 2026 – as it happened

Barney Ronay was at Boston Stadium tonight, and his match report is in. Congratulations to France, Norway. (almost certainly) Senegal for making it through a tough group, commiserations to Iraq/Scotland, and thanks to you, dear reader, for sticking with this MBM. See you soon!

The other match in Group I finished Senegal 5-0 Iraq. Daniel Gallan tells that story. Great to see the African sort-of-champions almost certainly making it through to the knockouts. though it’s come at the expense of Scotland, who need snookers now.

This was supposed to be about Kylian Mbappé versus Erling Haaland! But instead Ousmane Dembélé took centre stage. His hat-trick – a done deal at the 32-minute mark. the second earliest to be completed in a World Cup finals match after Erich Probst of Austria, who notched one after just 24 minutes of a first-round game against Czechoslovakia in 1954 – inserts him slap-bang into the middle of the Golden Boot race. Dembélé, Mbappé. Haaland are all on four goals after three games, one behind Lionel Messi, who will fancy stretching his lead against Jordan on Sunday morning no doubt.

Strange game, in that the final score doesn’t flatter France at all. And yet had Jørgen Strand Larsen scored that early second-half penalty,. Oscar Bobb taken his later chance, the result could have had a more favourable sheen for Norway. But that game was all about Ousmane Dembélé, and his easy-on-the-eye 25-minute first-half hat-trick. Three sublime finishes, albeit against a second-string defence. France finish top of the group with a 100 percent record. with Norway, given the team they selected tonight, presumably quite content to come in second. Both will fancy themselves to go deep into the tournament; France remain most people’s favourites to win the whole thing,. on this evidence, opposition notwithstanding, will take some stopping.

… and that’s the end of The Ousmane Dembélé Show.

A bit of space for Barcola down the left. He reaches the byline, checks back, then curls a precision cross to the far post, dropping onto the head of Doue, who guides a careful header over the outstretched hand of Selvik. into the top right. Lovely assist, lovely finish, lovely goal.

90 min +2: Hernandez barrels into space down the inside-left channel. He’s got options to pass, but goes for the spectacular instead. Over the bar it goes, and then some. Home hero Adam Vinatieri would have been proud of that.

90 min: There will be five additional minutes. Are those snacks ready yet? We’ve run out of Ventepølses.

88 min: France stroke it around the back and the clock ticks on.

86 min: Mbappe won’t be adding to his four-goal Golden Boot total. He’s replaced, along with Kounde, by Risser and Gusto.

84 min: The Norway corner’s nothing to write home about. Meanwhile Simon McMahon takes issue with my reference to shoogly pegs. cocktail sticks, and chides: “Come on Scott, where’s your Bannockburn spirit? If Ghana beat Croatia by three, Uzbekistan do the same to DR Congo,. then Algeria spank Austria by four, we’ll be fine.”

83 min: Kounde. Konate confuse each other, the former carelessly passing the ball back down the Norway left and out for a corner. Before it can be taken, Nusa and Hauge come on for Bobb and Schjelderup.

81 min: Doue sends a ball down the left for Barcola to chase. Barcola enters the box but his cutback isn’t the most accurate. He still wins a corner, though … but that also leads to nothing. A sense that both teams would be happy enough to declare right now.

79 min: Berg tries to up the tempo with a long-range effort,. his low drive is blocked the second it comes off his boot.

78 min: Norway are seeing most of the ball right now. France seem happy enough to let them have it. There’s not a great deal going on as Group I draws to an end.

76 min: Upamecano, who has had an up. down afternoon, falling for a couple of early dummies but also making one spectacular mid-air back-heeled clearance, is replaced by Konate.

74 min: Tchouameni is booked for a late clip on Aasgaard. That yellow will hang over him for precisely 16 minutes plus stoppages: all yellows get wiped after the group stage.

72 min: Aasgaard snaffles possession 30 yards out,. slips a perfectly weighted pass to Bobb, in acres to his right. Bobb takes a poor first touch,. though he still gets a shot away, his flip towards the bottom left is weak and easily parried by Maignan. First the Strand Larsen penalty and now Bobb, Norway have had their chances to get back into this. Somewhere in the multiverse, it’s now 3-3.

71 min: The game restarts. Fourth quarter incoming!

70 min: The hydration break is also an opportunity to let off some steam, and here’s Espen B:

double quotation mark “I could do better than that!” is something I’ve frequently said during games throughout the years,. if I’m honest with myself it’s never been true. Up until today and Strand Larsens penalty. Goodness me, that was horrendous. Those stutter-step ones looks great if the keeper moves. when they don’t, seems like the penalty taker is clueless about what to do, yet players persists with it. What happened to just Kevin Pressman-ing it?

68 min: … and that’s drinks. The pint of pastis liqueur and chocolate-covered corn snacks aren’t ready yet, we hear, so Ventepølses all round, please.

67 min: … and now another Norweigian change, as Falchener is replaced by Langas. “I must say Stale Solbakken is some buzz killer,” writes Rob Hisnay. “The ten changes he made has killed the momentum the Norwegians had going in this World Cup.”

66 min: Cherki’s first act is to take the corner won by Dembele, but that comes to nowt.

65 min: Dembele again in acres down the right. This time he wins a corner, but before it can be taken, that’s the end of his contribution tonight. He makes way for Barcola, while Olise is replaced by Cherki.

63 min: In the other Group I game, Senegal are 3-0 up over Iraq. Scotland’s coat, previously hanging on a shoogly peg, is now being supported by a pre-chewed cocktail stick.

61 min: France pass. probe, then suddenly Doue picks up the pace down the inside-right channel and draws a foul. Olise curls the free kick towards the far stick, where Lacroix, arriving late, sidefoots wide left from close range. He was offside anyway.

59 min: … and now he’s back up and running.

58 min: Selvik is down for a spot of treatment. Or maybe he just wants a cheeky quick breather. If anyone deserves a break, it’s him. He’s had a fine game under constant fire.

56 min: Mbappe fancies some of this sweet goalscoring action,. so shifts the ball in from the left before whipping a glorious long-distance shot across Selvik and inches wide and high of the top-right corner. That wasn’t far from being right on the postage stamp,. had it been on target, Selvik – who wasn’t badly positioned – wasn’t getting there. A hell of an effort.

54 min: Schjelderup’s mere presence down the left forces Upamecano into the concession of a corner. Berg curls it teasingly towards the near post, where Ostigard gently flicks on. Anybody rushing in at the far stick, and that’s a tap-in. But there’s nobody rushing in at the far stick. Penny, thoughts, Haaland, etc.

52 min: What a chance for Norway to get back into the match. Penny for the thoughts of Haaland, sitting on the bench,. now joined on four goals in the Golden Boot race by Dembele. “As Kev The Poet might be aware,” begins Bob O’Hara. “Norwegians are used to long nights, albeit not usually at this time of the year.”

50 min: Strand Larsen opens his body. does the tippy toes, then fluffs a sidefoot that rolls nowhere near the bottom right corner. Easy for Maignan to parry. What a dreadful effort.

49 min: Bobb dribbles in from the right. He’s clipped by Tchouameni, but opts not to go down. Then Hernandez hangs out a lazy leg. Bobb goes over it, and it’s a no-brainer for the ref, who points to the spot.

47 min: A slow start to the second half. Norway two minutes closer to respectability. “Stephen Bradfield (19 min) is only half right about ‘this sort of thing not happening in 1970’,” argues Justin Kavanagh. “England didn’t start any games with a star player on the bench, but they ended their quarter-final against West Germany with Bobby Charlton sat on it,. there’s no combing over what happened next.”

France get the second half started. Norway have made two changes: Bjorkan, who was given the runaround by Dembele,. Thorstvedt make way for Thorsby and Holmgren Pedersen.

What with Dembele’s rapid hat-trick and all, it’s easy to forget that Mbappe hit the bar after 22 seconds. Had that gone in, it’d have been the third-fastest World Cup history, behind Hakan Sukur’s 11-second effort for Turkey against South Korea in the 2002 third-place play-off,. Vaclav Masek’s 15-second strike for Czechoslovakia against Mexico in the 1962 groups. But here we are.

Half-time postbag. “I think that I’ve seen more shirt-pulls (including rips of shirts requiring replacement tops for at least two players) over the past fortnight than in any full season of football, so it was nice to see the Mbappé shirt-tug go unpenalised. the result was Dembele’s second. Is there a case to be made for players wearing mittens — or. better still, socks — on their hands?” – Fran Burke

“That hat-trick was of course completed on the 29-minute mark and took 22 minutes to score, not 32 and 25. Stop the clock for the drinks break! It’s playing havoc with the records. Perhaps Fifa don’t want it to look like four quarters,. the teams don’t change ends so it’s fine with me” – Andrew Goudie

“Appears to me that France playing a more open, attacking game under the assistant coach” – Jeff Sax

“Just two years ago Ousmane Dembélé was widely considered a never-was, if not quite yet a has-been. Not to go out on a limb here,. I think he might be good at football after all” – Kári Tulinius

“This is gonna be a long night for Norway. The defence is leaving the kind of spaces you could park a longboat in. Still, all praise to the home of Brown Cheese. concept of Ventepølse (‘waiting sausage’ - the hot dog you bring to a barbecue whilst the food cooks)” – Kev The Poet

Half-time entertainment.

The Ousmane Dembélé Show: end of part one.

45 min +5: France pass and probe. Then suddenly Dembele wedges a pass down the right and nearly releases Mbappe into the box. Not quite, too much juice on the ball, which flies out for a goal kick,. he earns a thumbs-up from his team-mate for the vision.

45 min +3: As well as inserting himself into the race for the Golden Boot, Ousmane Dembélé has become just the third player in history to score a hat-trick for France at the World Cup, following Kylian Mbappé’s three in the 2022 final,. a hat-trick and a four-goal haul for the legendary Just Fontaine in 1958, against Paraguay and West Germany respectively.

45 min +1: The first of five additional minutes, and Olise sweeps an insouciant shot over the bar from distance. The final score of this match could end up being anything.

45 min: Now it’s Doue versus Selvik in a one-on-one duel, and again the keeper does enough. Selvik has made several huge stops. he’s playing excellently, yet someone’s just scored one of the quickest World Cup hat-tricks in history past him. What you gonna do?

44 min: More end-to-end shenanigans as Aasgaard sends a ball across the face of the France goal from the right. Upamecano back-heel-volleying a clearance from a couple of yards out with Stand Larsen lurking. And then Dembele. in space on the right, messes up a cross with team-mates queuing up in the middle of the box.

42 min: Falchener chunks a backpass and allows Doue to nip in. Doue’s just got the keeper to beat, but Selvik smothers at the striker’s feet as he tries to round him.

40 min: Four goals already, plus a couple of half-decent positions for Norway. In the dugout, Erling Haaland, on four goals in this all-star race, allows himself a wry smile.

38 min: Dembele’s hat-trick is also not the earliest in a World Cup finals match. despite being completed on the 32-minute mark. Erich Probst of Austria notched one after just 24 minutes of a first-round game against Czechoslovakia in 1954. But it’s fast! My God c’est rapide!

36 min: Schjelderup is flipped up 30 yards from goal, but nothing comes of the resulting free kick. Norway don’t appear to be giving up quite yet.

34 min: That’s not the quickest hat-trick at a World Cup finals: László Kiss of Hungary needed just seven minutes in 1982 against El Salvador. But it’s fast! Mon Dieu it’s fast.

It’s a third curler into the bottom right for Dembele, who teases Bjorkan again. A couple of touches to make space. Whip. In. What a player! What a hat-trick, scored in 25 minutes!

31 min: Schjeldrup slips a ball down the inside-left channel and very nearly releases Stand Larsen. Upamecano does enough to usher the striker away from the box.

29 min: Aasgaard’s flick down the left sends Schjelderup into space. A low cross to the near post. Maignan smothers, with Stand Larsen lurking. Norway suddenly fancy this now.