For Olivier Giroud, starting on the bench against Australia last Saturday wasn’t the end of the world, but it certainly didn’t make him happy.
The Chelsea striker, normally integral to Didier Deschamps’ plans, was forced to wait until the 70th minute before getting his first taste of football in Russia, coming on to replace Griezmann.
Swapping the Emirates for Stamford Bridge in January, the 31-year-old managed to get more minutes under Antonio Conte than he did towards the end of his Arsenal spell to feed his addiction, which is scoring goals.
Speaking to Le Parisien before Thursday’s game against Peru, he said: “A goal, it’s like a drug. It even becomes an obsession. So I think that when you’ve been a forward once, it’s hard to go without it. When I was younger, I was left gutted when my manager would stick me at the back to make up numbers. I play football to score goals”.
Of course, likes most addictions, there’s also withdrawal symptoms when you can’t get your fix, and that’s when Giroud believes the mental strength comes in.
Describing scoring a goal as ‘letting go’, there’s a worry for the striker that he might never be able to get that feeling back once he hangs up his boots.
That doesn’t mean he won’t give it a go, planning on returning to skiing, which he hasn’t had the chance of doing since he was 16.
For him, it’s all about the ball crossing that line.
What happens before doesn’t interest him, because if the goalkeeper stops it, it was all for nothing.
He explained: “It’s like if you were making love, and someone stops you at the crucial moment”.
