The World Cup’s group stage delivered a cascade of milestones, with France’s 4-1 dismantling of Norway and Senegal’s 5-0 demolition of Iraq rewriting sections of the record book, while tiny Cape Verde produced one of the great underdog stories in tournament history.

Ousmane Dembele’s hat trick against Norway was as clinical as it was improbable. He scored three times inside 32 minutes while generating just 0.19 expected goals, the second-lowest xG total ever for a World Cup hat trick since records began in 1966. Only Hungary’s Laszlo Kiss in 1982 managed a hat trick from fewer chances. Dembele’s treble was also the second-earliest in World Cup history and only the sixth scored entirely in the first half. He became just the third Frenchman to net a World Cup hat trick, after Just Fontaine and Kylian Mbappe, and the first reigning Ballon d’Or winner to do so since Cristiano Ronaldo in 2018.

Dembele’s third goal carried another layer of rarity: it was the first of the 182 goals at this tournament to involve all 11 players in the build-up. Behind him, goalkeeper Mike Maignan joined Alex Thepot and Joel Bats as the only French keepers to save a World Cup penalty in regulation play.

Kylian Mbappe, creator rather than finisher on the night, supplied two assists to move to 20 World Cup goal contributions, joining Lionel Messi and Miroslav Klose as the only men to reach that mark since assist data has been tracked. Remarkably, he matched his career World Cup assist tally in a single game.

Elsewhere, Senegal produced a landmark performance for African football. Their 5-0 win over Iraq was the first time an African side scored five in a World Cup match and marked the largest victory margin by a team from the continent. Ismaila Sarr became Senegal’s all-time top World Cup scorer with his fourth goal, while substitutes Pape Gueye and Iliman Ndiaye combined goals and assists in a display of attacking depth rarely seen on this stage.

The most romantic storyline, though, belonged to Cape Verde. With a population of just 525,000, they became the smallest nation ever to reach the World Cup knockout phase, doing so without winning a group match. Unbeaten in three games and unbowed against former champions Spain and Uruguay, they advanced as debutants and earned a last-16 clash with defending champions Argentina, completing a group-stage campaign that will resonate far beyond their shores.