In a World Cup that has so far been defined by mayhem — last-gasp equalisers, nerve-shredding penalties, chaos as the default currency — France arrived at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium on Tuesday evening and offered the tournament a startling corrective.
While Brazil scrambled before finding their flair, Canada panicked in their scrappy win, and Paraguay required the lottery of spot-kicks to survive, Les Bleus dismantled Sweden 3-0 with the kind of calm, remorseless authority that separates contenders from champions. In doing so, they reminded anyone who needed reminding that this World Cup has a runaway favourite, and it wears blue.
France entered this tournament already installed as favourites, along with defending champions Argentina and Euro 2024 winners Spain. Three weeks later, that consensus has hardened into something close to certainty. They won all three group games, a feat matched only by Argentina and Mexico. They have scored 13 goals and conceded just two. They have now become the first nation in World Cup history to score three or more goals in five consecutive matches.
When Sweden’s head coach Graham Potter — who set up a perfectly reasonable defensive block — was asked for his assessment after the final whistle, he offered the most honest appraisal of the evening. “I personally haven’t seen a better team,” the Englishman said.
The instrument of Sweden’s destruction was Michael Olise, France’s London-born Bayern Munich attacking midfielder. Potter’s defensive setup, intended to stifle and compress, had the unintended consequence of handing Olise the freedom of New Jersey. He received the ball from centre-backs and immediately became everywhere — drifting left, then right, appearing in pockets behind the Swedish midfield, then beyond his own frontmen. By the end, his ball touchmap resembled what Thierry Henry, watching from the Fox Sports studio, described with the awe of a man who once wore that shirt himself.
Henry had already framed the Olise-Mbappe dynamic neatly after France’s opening win over Senegal. “If Mbappe is France’s MVP,” he said, “then Olise is their MIP — Most Important Player.” On Tuesday, he went further: “Michael is a freak. The way he sees stuff is not the same way as others. Sometimes he was doing stuff in training and you need to hold yourself back because you’re just thinking, ‘Wow!’ This guy is on another planet.”
Olise finished the game with five assists in the tournament — the most by any player in a World Cup since Germany’s Thomas Hassler in 1994. His second goal involvement on the night was breathtaking in its precision: a pass nutmegged through a Swedish defender’s legs to release Bradley Barcola, who applied a brutal finish. His third was sublime — laying the ball forward for Mbappe to sprint onto and fire inside the far post.
Flanking Olise was Ousmane Dembele on the right, a player whose particular brand of speed and trickery has tormented defences throughout this tournament, and Barcola on the left — a man who at one point sat two Swedish defenders on the floor simultaneously with a single, timed change of direction. Zlatan Ibrahimovic, watching from the studio, put it most succinctly: “The other ones are killers. But Olise sees solutions that only a genius sees.”
And then there is Kylian Mbappe.
He scored his 17th and 18th World Cup goals on Tuesday, bringing his total to six in this edition and tying Lionel Messi. With 18 goals from 18 World Cup games, he now trails only Messi’s career record of 19, achieved across 29 appearances. He has 10 goals in the knockout rounds alone, breaking a record previously shared by Brazilian legends Leonidas and Ronaldo. He is 27 years old, playing in the absolute peak of his powers, and enjoying himself.
His first goal was the kind that makes stadiums gasp in disbelief. A short corner worked to Dembele, who found Mbappe near the byline. Mbappe crossed over Sweden’s Viktor Gyokeres and from just outside the six-yard box sent a diagonal shot inside the far post. Sweden’s goalkeeper, Jacob Widell Zetterström, who otherwise had a decent game, never moved. After the goal, Mbappe ran immediately to the touchline, not to the fans or his teammates first, but to boss Didier Deschamps — returning to the dugout after flying back to France for his mother’s funeral. One by one, every French player followed, surrounding their coach in a spontaneous embrace that said everything about the collective soul of this squad.
It is this — more than the goals, more than the records — that defines France’s tournament. Mbappe has arrived in America not merely as a striker chasing history, but as a captain building something. He has publicly defended Dembele through difficult patches. He cajoled Olise after the playmaker wasted a chance in the second half. He has, by every account, made himself available for defensive duties. “Kylian knows how to defend,” Deschamps said.
“He scores goals too — more than anyone else. I told you from day one: he’s ona mission.”
When Deschamps bowed — literally bowed — as Mbappe was substituted in the 85th minute, it was an extraordinary image: a World Cup-winning player and coach acknowledging a player who may yet transcend them both. Mbappe, for his part, deflected it immediately. “The tribute to Didier? That’s the DNA of this group. We’re all in this together.”
“We’re on a mission,” Deschamps confirmed afterwards. “So am I with them.”
Paraguay await in Philadelphia on July 4 (India time 2.30am on Sunday, July 5). They eliminated Germany with a fortified defensive block and will surely offer France something similar. It will not matter much. This France team, built in Deschamps’s image but animated by Mbappe’s genius and Olise’s vision, has the tools to unpick anything the tournament throws at them.
Chaos has been this World Cup’s heartbeat. France — serene yet ruthless — may be its pulse.
(Written with inputs from Reuters & AP)
