Rarely does a goal encapsulate a team so well. The third goal scored by Ousmane Dembele and France in their 4-1 win over Norway sealed a 25-minute hat-trick for the forward and a perfect group stage for Didier Deschamps’ side.The move lasted for almost a minute, contained 17 passes and involved every France player, making it the first goal this tournament to involve an entire team.It started with centre-back Dayot Upamecano reading a through ball from Kristian Thorstvedt into Jorgen Strand Larsen. He intercepted, played a forward pass up to Dembele, and it was worked it back to Upamecano via right-back Jules Kounde.From there, France built slowly through central midfield and Manu Kone. Possession was patiently worked out to the right, where Dembele found No 10 Michael Olise with a pass through midfield, but he had nobody ahead of him because Kylian Mbappe had pulled into the left half-space.So they recycled once more, round to the left this time, where Desire Doue got into a crossing position. He decided against putting the ball in the box, going centrally instead, and the decisive pass came from Aurelien Tchouameni splitting the Norway midfield to find Dembele. This triggered a forward run from Kounde.So much credit must go to Dembele for his composure and technique, curling an instep shot with his left foot past Egil Selvik. The role Kounde plays is important too. His overlap becomes a decoy, confusing left-back Fredrik Andre Bjorkan and Thorstvedt. Bjorkan tries to pass Kounde onto his teammate and fails to react when Dembele shifts the ball out of his feet, creating himself space to shoot.That move encapsulates France because it’s a team goal, even if they were facing a weakened, rotated Norway team. The word ‘team’ does not tend to go beside Mbappe these days. He’s considered a luxury player at club level because he does so little defending, and while his goalscoring numbers are exceptional, he’s not much of a creator.Against Norway he produced two assists for Dembele, something he has not done at club level since 2022, finding him with diagonal passes out to the right. Deschamps has found a way for him and Dembele to dovetail, leaning into the vertical passes which maximise Mbappe’s pace but that previous iterations of France found too risky to play frequently.Here’s Dembele and Doue looking to release Mbappe in behind the Norway back four.“What I like is that my players were very generous,” France assistant Guy Stephan told reporters, covering Deschamps for the match and media duties, as he was temporarily back home following the death of his mother. Stephan elaborated on that generosity: “Collective play, one-twos in certain phases where we gave our opponents a difficult time”.Deschamps, a master of reinvention, has rebuilt the attack following the retirements of Antoine Griezmann and Olivier Giroud in 2024, the same year in which France scrapped their way to a European Championship semi-final.