Kylian Mbappé sparks France with two goals in 3-1 win over Senegal at the World Cup

Kylian Mbap­pé scored twice to move past Pelé and Li­onel Mes­si with 14 World Cup goals, Bradley Bar­co­la added an­oth­er and France re­bound­ed from a sur­pris­ing­ly poor first half to beat Sene­gal 3-1 Tues­day.

Mbap­pé had 14 touch­es in the score­less first half, the fewest of any play­er, then showed his bril­liance when he put Les Bleus ahead in the 66th minute. Af­ter Jules Kounde and Michael Olise twice ex­changed pass­es on the right flank, Olise made a di­ag­o­nal pass as Mbap­pé burst past Sene­gal cap­tain Kali­dou Koulibaly.

Mbap­pé turned on­to the ball just out­side the 6-yard box and slid it past Édouard Mendy and in­side the far post.

Bar­co­la en­tered in the 80th and scored two min­utes lat­er when he ran on­to a through ball from Adrien Ra­biot, took a touch and lift­ed the ball past Mendy for his fourth in­ter­na­tion­al goal.

Ibrahim Mbaye scored on an an­gled shot for Sene­gal five min­utes in­to stop­page time. Mbap­pé then had a spec­tac­u­lar long-range goal a minute lat­er, over Mendy’s out­stretched arm and just un­der the cross­bar.

Mbap­pé moved one ahead of Mes­si and Just Fontaine on the World Cup ca­reer scor­ing list and is tied with Gerd Müller, trail­ing on­ly Brazil’s Ronal­do (15) and Ger­many’s Miroslav Klose (16). Mbap­pé al­so set a French record with 58 in­ter­na­tion­al goals, one more than Olivi­er Giroud.

Try­ing to reach its third straight World Cup fi­nal, France plays Iraq on Mon­day in Philadel­phia, then clos­es Group I on June 26 against Nor­way at Foxbor­ough, Mass­a­chu­setts. Sene­gal meets Nor­way on Mon­day at MetLife and fin­ish­es the first round against Iraq at Toron­to. —EAST RUTHER­FORD, N.J. (AP)

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Sto­ry by RONALD BLUM | As­so­ci­at­ed Press