With his 40th birthday arriving on Wednesday, Olivier Giroud has looked ahead to a goodbye he expects to make at the end of the season: the Lille striker says no part of football will be harder to leave behind than the instant a goal goes in.
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Giroud, the 2018 World Cup winner, is expected to retire when the current campaign ends, bringing a long professional career towards its final months.
The Lille forward said scoring remains the incomparable feeling in the game, the moment that brings supporters to their feet and delivers an emotion he believes cannot be replaced.
“It is always extraordinary. It is worth its weight in gold,” Giroud said. “What makes crowds rise, what is incomparable, is the emotion you feel when you score.”
Asked what he expects to miss most after retirement, the answer was immediate: goals.
Giroud reflected on several of the defining finishes of his career, beginning with the scorpion-kick goal for Arsenal against Crystal Palace that earned him the 2017 Puskas Award.
He recalled the surprise visible on his face after producing such an unusual finish, then turned to another landmark moment in a France shirt: his headed winner against England in the 2022 World Cup quarter-final.
France won that match 2-1, and Giroud said the celebration showed a rush of anger, pleasure and emotion. “In that moment, I feel like crying,” he said.
The next appointment in France
Giroud now has the remainder of the Ligue 1 season with Lille to savour before the expected end of his playing career. Each goal in those final months will carry the feeling he says no retirement can reproduce.
