Dembele's first-half hat-trick sees France beat Norway's reserves

Boston StadiumAttendance: Attendance64,146.

>Match report as France top Group I with a 4-1 win over Norway, who made 10 changes and left Erling Haaland and Martin Odegaard as unused substitutes; Ousmane Dembele scored a treble inside 32 minutes in Boston; Thelo Aasgaard pulled one back and Jorgen Strand Larsen's penalty was saved

>Ousmane Dembele's 25-minute hat-trick allowed France to comfortably beat Norway's second string 4-1 and complete a perfect Group I campaign.

>With qualification already secured for both sides, and only top spot to play for, Norway made 10 changes - leaving Erling Haaland and Martin Odegaard on the bench - and it showed.

>Their back-up defenders were given a warning as Kylian Mbappe hit the bar inside 22 seconds, but Dembele then struck in the seventh and 20th minutes by finding the same bottom corner.

>Seventy-nine seconds after Dembele's second, Norway pulled one back as Thelo Aagsaard - who has a French mother - pulled one back from the edge of the box. But Dembele completed his hat-trick by finding that corner a third time. All three goals saw questionable Norway defending.

>Norway missed a chance to pull one back after half-time when they got a penalty after Oscar Bobb was tripped by a lazy Theo Hernandez challenge, but Jorgen Strand Larsen's weak spot kick after a stutter was easily saved by Mike Maignan.

>The only other first-half World Cup hat-trick in history was at the last United States World Cup in 1994 - when Oleg Salenko scored a treble in Russia's 6-1 win over Cameroon. He went on to score five in that game.

>There was gloss to the scoreline in added time as Desire Doue nodded in his first goal of the tournament from substitute Bradley Barcola's cross.

>France will face one of the third-placed teams - which is most likely to be Sweden - on Tuesday June 30, kick-off at 10pm in New Jersey.

>Norway will face Ivory Coast on Tuesday June 30 at 6pm in Dallas, Texas.

>"Norway were focusing on the knockout game next week. They stuck at it, had good goalscoring opportunities themselves, but they found France too much, particularly the attacking players.

>"France scored four and could have got a couple of more. If they keep up their tally of 10 goals in three games - they will be very difficult to stop.

>"Going forward, they are the best in the competition. It's about having good habits and traits.

>"What top players do is dictate where you're going to go. The only concern is when Dembele gets the ball in those areas, you've got to get out to him.

>"It's the beauty of the French team, they can keep possession, every one gets a touch on the ball as we saw with their third goal. But they can also have one or two passes and they're through on goal. They can break you down with possession, and counter-attack. They are two great strengths to have.

>"Particularly their wide players - if you can go past people one-vs-one, it can change the picture. We have seen that England have players who struggle to do that, but if you have three or four players in your group that can go past people, it makes things a lot easier."

>"Now it's about charging up the batteries - remember that the ​break we had from the last game is the shortest the ⁠team has had in the tournament, and now a new game is coming up in four days.

>"The only argument for not doing what we did [resting ⁠10 players] is that the fans around Norway ​and here could have seen Erling and [captain] Martin [Odegaard].

>"But then it ​wouldn't be a long World Cup, and that's what we're here for - we're here to go as far as possible."

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