FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — France forward Ousmane Dembélé scored a first-half hat trick, including one off an assist from Kylian Mbappé, to give his team a 3-1 lead over Norway at the FIFA World Cup on Friday.
Dembélé’s goals came in the seventh, 20th and 32nd minutes. It was the first first-half hat trick at the World Cup since Russia forward Oleg Salenko scored three of his five goals in the opening 45 minutes against Cameroon at the 1994 World Cup in the United States.
The matchup with Norway — with first place in Group I on the line — was billed as a Golden Boot showdown between Erling Haaland and Mbappé, but Haaland was rested and it was Dembélé who stole the show with three well-taken goals before the break.
Read more:Europe’s heatwave shifts east as as France raises health alert to highest level
The showing put Dembélé squarely into the race for the World Cup’s top scorer along with Haaland, Mbappé, Vinícius Júnior and Lionel Messi.
The fastest World Cup hat trick took only 7 minutes, 42 seconds. Hungary striker Laszlo Kiss, who had come on as a substitute, managed that feat late in the match against El Salvador at the 1982 World Cup in Spain.
Read more:FIFA won’t prohibit rainbow flags at Egypt-Iran match
The quickest World Cup hat trick from the start of the match occurred at the 1954 tournament in Switzerland when Austria striker Erich Probst scored his three goals in the opening 24 minutes against Czechoslovakia.
France, who won the World Cup in 2018 and lost in the final four years ago, had already secured their place in the knockout round before Friday’s match. Norway is also assured of a spot in the round of 32.
