Despite the guy playing a key role in the small matter of his team only going and winning the World Cup, it seems some people can’t help but make a certain point about Olivier Giroud.
You see, even though he’s a striker, and he spent a total of 546 minutes on the pitch for his national side, not only did Giroud fail to score, he didn’t manage to have a single shot on target throughout the entire tournament.
Of course, you would hope the people making this point aren’t criticising the guy, he is a World Cup winner after all, and played an invaluable role for his team.
It’s just that there is something noteworthy about a striker winning the World Cup without registering a single shot on target.
Though it’s expected that strikers, or forwards, are usually the ones to be responsible for scoring the most goals, Giroud found his role to be that of a playmaker, proving that it’s not always about scoring goals to be part of a winning team.
Then again, 31-year-old Giroud did have 19-year-old wunderkind Kylian Mbappé on his side, as well as Antoine Greizmann, so it’s not as if the team were short of talent up front.
And his contributions did not go unnoticed:
Despite transferring to Chelsea earlier in January this year, Giroud remains well-regarded by his previous club Arsenal, where he spent almost six years playing.
His former club were proud of his most recent achievement, too.
They tweeted:
From Grenoble to Istres
From Tours to Montpellier
From Arsenal to a regular for #FRAAnd now… a #WorldCup winner!
What a journey you’ve had, Olivier – we’re all so pleased for you
Meanwhile, it was England captain Harry Kane who, despite not making it to the final, came away from the World Cup with a different kind of trophy.
The 24-year-old was named the top scorer at the 2018 World Cup in Russia earning him the highly coveted Golden Boot.
Harry managed to score six times in Russia, putting him two goals ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo, Romelu Lukaku and Denis Cheryshev.
Kane scored twice in England’s first match against Tunisia, a hat-trick against Panama and a penalty against Colombia in the last-16.
This makes Harry the second English player ever to win the Golden Boot, along with Gary Lineker who also scored six goals at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.
Lineker shouldn’t be too worried though, he still holds the overall English World Cup record with ten goals – six in Mexico and four at the 1990 World Cup in Italy.
Harry Kane’s six goals in his maiden tournament, however, do make him England’s second highest top scorer at a World Cup ever, just ahead of Geoff Hurst who bagged five goals in two tournaments.
Though Kane fired his way to the Golden Boot, it was Luka Modric of runners-up Croatia who won the Golden Ball award, for the tournament’s best player.
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.