Mbappé brace on his 100th cap sends storm-hit France past Iraq and into the last 32

France beat Iraq 3-0 in Philadelphia to reach the World Cup last 32, on a night halted for 131 minutes by lightning, the longest game in tournament history. Kylian Mbappé scored twice on his 100th cap and Ousmane Dembélé got the first World Cup goal of his career.

France booked their place in the World Cup knockouts, but Tuesday night in Philadelphia will be remembered for the storm that almost swallowed it. Kylian Mbappé marked his 100th France cap with two goals and Ousmane Dembélé added a third, a 3-0 win over Iraq stretched across the longest match in World Cup history.

Mbappé settled the football early. On fourteen minutes he took a Michael Olise pass on the edge of the box and lashed it past the Iraqi keeper, the ideal way to mark a hundredth appearance for his country. France were purring and looked set for a routine evening.

Then the sky opened. As the half-time whistle blew, thunderstorms and lightning rolled over Lincoln Financial Field and officials ordered everyone off. The players sat in the dressing rooms for more than two hours, 131 minutes in all, before the conditions cleared and the referee could restart. No game in World Cup history had ever lasted so long.

Whatever rhythm Iraq hoped the break might gift them, Mbappé erased it. Soon after the resumption he pounced on a defensive mix-up in the Iraqi box on fifty-four minutes and slotted home his second. The contest, such as it was, ended there.

There was a lovely moment still to come. On sixty-six minutes Dembélé took aim and drove a clean right-footed finish into the net, the first World Cup goal of a long and decorated career. For a player who has given France so much, it had been a strange while coming.

The shape of the night was a mismatch. France had nineteen shots to Iraq's four, and Graham Arnold's side did not manage a single effort on target across the whole evening. The clean sheet was never in any danger.

The result sends France through. Didier Deschamps' side sit top of Group I on six points, into the Round of 32 with a game to spare, as their opening win over Senegal had hinted they would. For Iraq the tournament is over, mathematically eliminated after back-to-back defeats to Norway and now France, the opening loss to Norway the one that stings most.

Back home, France pull a crowd. Mbappé is box office, and a team threaded with African heritage, from Mbappé's Cameroon and Algeria to Dembélé's roots in Mali and Senegal, feels close to plenty of Kenyan fans. Mbappé ni mtoto wa Afrika, tunamuona kama wetu: Mbappé is a child of Africa, and we see him as one of our own. Spare a thought too for Iraq, who travelled a long way to be sent home in a thunderstorm. Our Europe round-one verdict had France among the sides to beat, and on this evidence they are only warming up.