During the first knockout games of the FIFA World Cup, games have been decided in chaos, often by the most slender of margins.Brazil, Canada and Norway all required extremely late goals to maintain their places in the competition. Morocco and Paraguay both needed penalty kicks, the harshest means of breaking a deadlock.And then came France, the most fancied team of all, emerging from the bedlam to remind us all that football games can be won with order, serenity and utter dominance.France entered this competition as favourites and this perception has only consolidated since the tournament began three weeks ago. The French performance in the group stage, winning all three games, was matched only by Argentina and Mexico. A goals haul of 10 was equalled only by the Netherlands and Germany, both of whom have now gone out.This France performance was their most menacing yet, a devastating dismantling of a Swedish team which included seven regular Premier League players in its starting XI. It featured two more goals from Kylian Mbappe, who has now scored more World Cup knockout goals than any player in the competition’s history, and it ended with his coach, Didier Deschamps appearing to bow down before his striker. France had 25 shots on Sweden’s goal, 12 of them on target.Didier Deschamps ‘bows’ down to Kylian Mbappe (Fox Sports)Sweden, it should be said, were amenable opponents. The setup by coach Graham Potter, offering two lines of four in midfield and defence, gave the freedom of New Jersey to Michael Olise, France’s utterly irresistible playmaker. Surrounded by the speed and guile of Ousmane Dembele on the right side, Bradley Barcola on the left, and then the sheer electricity of Mbappe through the middle, Olise treated MetLife Stadium as his personal playground.He played short and long, around the corner here, through the legs there. He collected the ball from the centre-backs to begin French attacks, but then he popped up just about everywhere on the field. He turned up on the left, then right, then in behind the Swedish midfield and sometimes beyond his own frontmen. By the end, his touchmap resembled a toddler’s first encounter with painting, splodges here, there and everywhere.Thierry Henry, a French icon in his own right, provided the best description for the Olise-Mbappe relationship after France’s opening game win over Senegal. “If Mbappe is France’s MVP, then Olise is their MIP — Most Important Player,” Henry said.Henry, who previously coached Olise at the 2024 Olympics, continued his praise for Olise in the Fox studio on Tuesday night. “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.”