For 45 minutes, France looked like a disjointed tournament favorite. Senegal were quicker, sharper, and a missed sitter away from leading at the break. After a slow start, France remembered it had Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 \u2014 and by full-time he’d dragged Les Bleus to a 3-1 win and himself into the history books.<\/p>\n
The scoreboard reads 3-1 and Mbapp\u00e9 now reads as France’s greatest-ever men’s goalscorer. Mercifully for Les Bleus, the first half won’t be remembered at all.<\/p>\n
Here are my takeaways from France’s opening win:<\/p>\n
For an hour, this wasn’t the Mbapp\u00e9 anyone bought tickets for. Wasteful, heavy in the touch, robbed in good areas, beaten to everything by Senegal keeper \u00c9douard Mendy. The France captain was poor in the first half, considering his lofty standards.<\/p>\n
Then he scored twice in the second half and rewrote the record books.<\/p>\n
The first, a clinical first-time finish from Michael Olise’s pass, drew Mbapp\u00e9 level with Olivier Giroud on the record books. The historic second goal \u2014 restoring the cushion seconds after Senegal pulled one back \u2014 made him France’s outright all-time leading scorer with 58 goals, reached in his 99th cap. Giroud needed 137. And Mbapp\u00e9 is still only 27 years old.<\/p>\n
That’s the magnificent truth about Mbapp\u00e9: he can be invisible for 45 minutes and still walk off as the most important player in his country’s history. He’s also up to 14 World Cup goals now \u2014 two shy of Germany legend Miroslav Klose’s all-time record.<\/p>\n
(Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n Here’s the slightly unfair truth about this team: they don’t need to be good to win. They just need to be France for twenty minutes.<\/p>\n They were second best for a half. Senegal pressed, countered with pace and created the better chances \u2014 Nicolas Jackson rattled the post, and was dangerous on a few offside decisions. Isma\u00efla Sarr missed a near-open net before the break. On another night, France is chasing this at the halftime break.<\/p>\n Instead, Senegal weren’t clinical, France had a finisher who was historic, and the rest sorted itself out. Ibrahim Mbaye’s late strike was the goal their hour deserved \u2014 and it changed nothing.<\/p>\n That’s the gap between the contenders and everyone else: Senegal did almost everything right given the opposition and lost by two<\/p>\n (Photo by ANP via Getty Images)<\/span> <\/p>\n Deschamps has the problem every other coach dreams about: too many quality players, not enough balance.<\/p>\n Tonight’s front leaned on Mbapp\u00e9, Demb\u00e9l\u00e9, Olise and Dou\u00e9 \u2014 closer to a 4-2-4 than his usual 4-2-3-1 \u2014 and for a half it left Tchouam\u00e9ni and Rabiot stranded. France were wide open and the defense often forced to man mark. Mbapp\u00e9’s never been famous for his pressing; he managed fewer interceptions in La Liga last season than Joan Garc\u00eda, who is a goalkeeper.<\/p>\n We even got a Cherki cameo, and the Manchester City playmaker makes France’s best XI more fun without making it more balanced. Every flair merchant you add is another body not shielding that midfield two.<\/p>\n The talent is absurd. The question for a manager in his final tournament is restraint: how much beauty can France afford before it costs them a knockout game? Especially since the quality of the opposition will only strengthen in the knockout stages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" POPULAR SEARCHES BROWSE BY For 45 minutes, France looked like a disjointed tournament favorite. Senegal were quicker, sharper, and a missed sitter away from leading at the break. After a slow start, France remembered it had Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 \u2014 and by full-time he’d dragged Les Bleus to a 3-1 win and himself into the history […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/play-live.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}