France exhibited Spain-like vibes in the first half, with Kylian Mbappé showing little interest in defending. However, Les Bleus and their superstar eventually buckled down. Meanwhile, the Man of the Match jury sent an interesting signal. Here are three observations from France’s 3:1 win against Senegal.
Does Didier Deschamps Not Watch the Champions League?
First Spain, now France: even though the vice-world champions ultimately managed to pull through, the top favorites were at least temporarily victims of their own sluggishness in their opening matches.
Admittedly, Senegal is a different caliber of opponent than Cape Verde, so France’s ultimately deserved 3:1 victory should be rated quite highly. Nevertheless, France’s first half was concerning.
The French played with an overly passive, waiting game, even by Deschamps’ cautious standards. What was particularly striking, however, was the lack of tempo with which the French approached the game. This was surprising, considering that Kylian Mbappé, Ousmane Dembélé, Désiré Doué, and Bayern superstar Michael Olise are among the fastest players on the planet, both with and without the ball. While one doesn’t expect a World Cup in general, and such a massive tournament in particular, to set new tactical trends, the fact that high-class football games possess a certain dynamism is not only evident in the Champions League.
Of course, France upped the tempo in the second half, sped up the game, and consequently created high-class chances, leading to a deserved 3:1 victory. However, the impression from the first half is lasting and should serve as a wake-up call for Deschamps, as well as for Spain’s coach Luis de la Fuente and Brazil’s Carlo Ancelotti.
Coaches actually have time before the second group games to study and implement something new this time around: perhaps they should watch Champions League matches from Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain beforehand and see how modern football coaches and their teams celebrate football today.
Kylian Mbappé Can Do No Wrong
However, it would be too simplistic to attribute France’s lackluster first half solely to Deschamps’ cautious tactics. The French national team coach will not change in his final games, and his teams have usually delivered in the end. And the fact that a player doesn’t follow up after losing possession, thus creating a big chance that hits the post by Bayern’s former loan player Nicolas Jackson, is certainly not due to Deschamps’ ideas and teachings. Kylian Mbappé is solely responsible for that.
That after the 3:1, the focus is primarily on Mbappé’s spectacular records and his two goals is natural – and due to that almost insane second goal from distance just before the end. Mbappé has scored 58 goals in just 99 international matches – no Frenchman has ever scored more. Another milestone in a career full of superlatives. And at least one superlative is within reach: he only needs two more goals at the 2026 World Cup to catch up with Miroslav Klose as the all-time World Cup top scorer. And France was, is, and remains the top favorite of the tournament after this ultimately highly deserved 3:1 victory at the start.
Mbappé was only 19 when he won the World Cup with France in Russia in 2018. His four goals were important on the way to the title, and he was named the best young player of the tournament. In 2022, in the final, he engaged in an epic private duel with Lionel Messi and his Argentinians, almost single-handedly keeping France’s title chances alive with his hat-trick in the 3:3 draw in regular time. With eight goals, he was also the top scorer of the tournament.
Mbappé seemed destined to dominate world football in the coming years and lead the era after Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. However, something has shifted in the past four years: although Mbappé scored many goals for Real Madrid this season and finally became the protagonist he needed to be at the Blancos, others won the major titles. His former club PSG, for instance, from which he separated amid disputes. Ousmane Dembélé of Paris Saint-Germain was recently named the world’s best player, and Désiré Doué and Bayern’s Michael Olise have long been considered more exciting players than Mbappé. Incidentally, all four seem to enjoy defending these days, not just with the national team. In that regard, they have an advantage over Mbappé. But if Mbappé continues to score goals like this, even Deschamps will forgive him for not tracking back after losing possession.
The Next World Player of the Year Could Truly Come from FC Bayern
No FC Bayern Munich player has won the Ballon d’Or since 1981. Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, now on the supervisory board and a world-class striker at the time, received the trophy twice in a row. Since then, there have been a few disappointments in Munich, such as when Franck Ribéry went home empty-handed in 2013 or when the ceremony was canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic, with COVID thus taking the trophy away from Robert Lewandowski (though the striker was later named the world’s best player at FIFA’s competing event in the following two years).
This year, however, a player from FC Bayern could actually win the Ballon d’Or again. With England’s Harry Kane and Michael Olise, two players are even considered to have a chance. While Kane and his Englishmen first need to prove that this so-called golden generation can actually be more successful than all their predecessors, Michael Olise faces the problem of having numerous rivals in France’s stacked squad – and these rivals have recently shone: Dembélé won the Champions League again, and Mbappé is Mbappé.
However, one thing could give Olise and Bayern hope: after the 3:1 against Senegal, the FIFA jury did not award the Man of the Match to the brace-scoring World Cup poster boy Mbappé, but to Olise. While this was entirely deserved – Olise’s performance was captivating, and Deschamps moving him from the right wing to the center in the second half significantly changed the game’s dynamics, from where Olise also provided the magical pass to Mbappé for the 1:0 – juries of this kind typically do not award the best player as Man of the Match immediately after the final whistle, but rather the most successful goalscorers. But if it has even reached the FIFA post-match juries that Michael Olise is the decisive man for decisive actions, then the experts awarding the Ballon d’Or should have known this long ago.