World Cup: Karim Benzema And France Thrash Switzerland
The French national team entered the match against Switzerland off a convincing 3-0 win over Honduras in their Group E opener at the 2014 World Cup, and inside 20 minutes they exhibited the same precision in front of goal against the Swiss as they did against Honduras.
In just the 17th minute, Didier Deschamps side were ahead 1-0 off a goal from Olivier Giroud, who headed in a corner kick for the lead. Just one minute later, the lead had doubled as Benzema intercepted the ball, played a brilliant through ball and Matuidi put his name onto the score sheet. In the 40th minute, Olivier Giroud and Mathieu Valbuena both made deep runs into the Swiss half, with Giroud placing a perfect pass beyond the Swiss defenders and to Valbuena’s feet for him to easily score, and the rout was officially on.
3-0 to the French at the half, and it seemed the Swiss team had no answer for Les Bleus.
After the halftime break, the French replaced scorer Giroud with young star Paul Pogba in the 63rd minute, and 3 minutes later Mamadou Sakho was replaced by Laurent Koscielny. These changes did little to change the face of the match, and shortly after coming on Pogba made an impact, playing a perfect pass through to Karim Benzema who finished beautifully with a volley through the keepers legs, it was 4-0 to France and the hits kept coming for Switzerland, who saw goal 5 flash past them just 5 minutes later from the feet of Moussa Sissoko, who collected a wonderful pass from Benzeman before finishing cooly to tally his first international goal for France.
The Swiss would save some face by scoring 2 goals late, one from Dzemaili and another from Xhaka, with the final score resting a comfortable 5-2 to the French team, who have almost completely banished the poor memories of the 2010 World Cup.
The complete victory by France seemed to let the rest of the tournament know that they are a force to be reckoned with, and Karim Benzema has made a statement with 3 goals in his first 2 matches, as well as acting as a leading playmaker for France as well. If the French continue to fire on all cylinders, it doesn’t look as if many teams could contain them!
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