World Cup, Round of 32: France 3 (Mbappé 45, 74, Barcola 53) Sweden 0 (scorers)The Irish Times has not always been generous in its assessments over the years of Didier Deschamps’ France teams. Deschamps-France has been accused of chronically “doing just enough, and no more,” of being an “armoured pig”, of being an insult to the French tradition of La Gloire, etc. “The body parts have been stitched together on Dr Deschamps’ laboratory slab, but the creature stubbornly refuses to come to life,” is a typical commentary from 2018 about the team that would win the World Cup three weeks later. Today, The Irish Times wishes to extend its humble and heartfelt apologies to Deschamps. His fourth French World Cup team wowed New York/New Jersey (actually New Jersey) playing Harlem Globetrotters football. Admittedly Sweden were never likely to provide a serious test, but the 3-0 scoreline actually flattered Graham Potter’s team. Something surprising and strange will have to happen to prevent France adding a third star to their shirts on July 19th. The 2026 team features six of the players who started the 2022 final in Qatar, but watching them is a completely different experience. The Deschamps teams of the past always included Olivier Giroud up front. Kylian Mbappé always liked playing with Giroud, considering his job easier when a big-centre forward – a so-called reference – was occupying the defenders.But France currently don’t have a goalscoring target-man like Giroud. What they have instead is arguably five of the world’s top 10 attacking midfielders, in Ousmane Dembélé, Michael Olise, Désiré Doué, Bradley Barcola, and Rayan Cherki.Kylian Mbappé celebrates scoring France's opening goal with team-mate Bradley Barcola. Photograph: Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images So Mbappé has graciously agreed to play centre-forward in order so three of these five can start in the second line of attack. And it has turned out that playing with such a collection of brilliant creative footballers actually makes him look even better than off an old-school number nine. It’s the same Deschamps sitting in the dugout, with the same principles and priorities, but it turns out that it is basically impossible for his new group of players to play boring football. It’s as though it just never occurs to Michael Olise to do something that isn’t beautiful. His emergence as one of the best players in the world is an indictment of the Premier League teams that allowed him to join Bayern Munich for as little as €65 million, around what Arsenal paid for Viktor Gyokeres. What can you say? Somehow Olise’s combination of perfect ball-striking, dribbling, acceleration, visionary passing, athleticism and showmanship didn’t show up in the data. There were more French than Swedish shirts on another sunny evening at the MetLife Stadium, though the number of actual French fans was probably not more than a couple of thousand. They were the ones singing in French. The rest of those in blue were mainly Americans, here to see France’s superstar in the flesh, and they were not to be disappointed – though if they were paying close attention, they will have come away wondering if Olise and not Mbappé is the true superstar of this side.Amid a general French onslaught in the first half, Olise was the standout attraction: you just cannot wait to see what he is going to do next. On 35 minutes he met a ball from the left channel with an acrobatic scissor kick that was like something out of a Pepsi ad. It looked a goal all the way but bounced off the far post and Dembélé, following up, missed the top corner with his shot from the rebound. Michael Olise attempts a shot on goal for France. Photograph: Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images Olise nearly scored just before half-time with a curling shot that almost sneaked inside the post, and then, as Sweden tried to gather themselves to defend the resulting corner, he and Dembélé surprised the Swedes by taking it quickly. Dembélé’s clever pass found Mbappé infiltrating the Swedish area, he made short work of Gyokeres before whipping a curling shot into the far corner. Mbappé ran straight to the dugout to celebrate with Deschamps, recently returned from the funeral of his mother back home in France. In recent months the Real Madrid star has faced a wave of criticism unprecedented in his career as the club’s fans, unhappy with the team’s failure since his arrival two years ago, have decided his lack of defensive work rate is to blame. Here in America, he is determined to remind everyone why he is the most important star at Madrid and show what he is capable of alongside a supporting cast far better than his club team-mates. Kylian Mbappé celebrates with France head coach Didier Deschamps after scoring the opening goal against Sweden. Photograph: Jewel Samad/AFP via Getty Images Olise was at the heart of the move that brought the second for France on 53 minutes, nutmegging a defender with the through-ball that put Barcola in for a simple chance that he clouted into the top corner. Olise was there again on 73 minutes, rounding one defender then splitting another two with a pass for Mbappé, who again whipped it in from his favoured left side. That put him level with Lionel Messi in what is the most exciting Golden Boot race anyone can remember, and brought his total of World Cup goals to 18, two more than anyone else in history except the Argentinian. The draw has worked out in such a way that the final could be a repeat of the 2022 decider: France v Argentina. After watching the show they put on here today, you have to imagine France are looking forward to that prospect rather more eagerly than the Argentinians are.