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The tournament favorites were far from their best in their first half against a strong Senegal side. Their star forward made sure things finished fineAfter the whistle blew for half-time, Kylian Mbappé ran to the player tunnel at a good clip, followed by Ousmane Dembélé. Behind them, the rest of the French team were in no such hurry, sauntering off the pitch. The forward widely considered the best in the world – or at least the most famous in the Non-Ronaldo-and-Messi Division – and the reigning Ballon d’Or winner had much to discuss.The scoreless first half Tuesday against a Senegal side who had organized and pressed cohesively and forged much the better chances, including a clipped post, was a disjointed mess for the 2018 World Cup champions and the 2022 runners-up. But having the world’s best corps of forwards means getting to comprehensively beat the (former) African champions 3-1 despite spending the first hour looking like your front four had never played together before. And possibly didn’t even know one another’s names.Because France have Mbappé. And Dembélé. And Michael Olise.It seemed there was little connective tissue holding the French attack together in the first half. Olise roamed every which way from his right flank, once nearly traveling to the other touch line just to get involved in the play, but couldn’t figure out how to affect the game. Désiré Doué hardly factored on the left. And then there was the slapstick series of misunderstandings between Dembélé, playing in the pocket, and Mbappé up front.The latter was nearly sprung in the fourth minute, served by Adrien Rabiot – French manager Didier Deschamps’ longtime and much-maligned pet playmaker. Mbappé received the ball with his right ass cheek, which evidently lacked the suppleness of his feet. He exchanged several hopeful balls with Dembélé, but their partnership never quite seemed to produce any real peril for the Senegalese defense, which enjoyed a pleasant afternoon of casual work on a sunny day that was neither hot nor humid.Olise, sticking to the right for once, eviscerated El Hadji Malick Diouf late in the first half and set off into the vacant corridor. He and Mbappé seemed to lock eyes but never entirely worked out who was going where. Nothing was working.Mbappé and Dembélé, the main protagonists up the middle, were having a very miserable time, gesticulating at one another, willing the other to just read their minds already. The French looked every bit like a team with an innately defensive manager who had set up his attackers in positions or roles they don’t play for their clubs. They were a collective in search of ideas and solutions, aware that they were far too good to look this bad.And yet. The Senegalese pressed and cut right through the French lines to create several good chances. Nicolas Jackson’s shot off Mike Maignan’s near post followed an Mbappé turnover upfield. When Mbappé lost the ball yet again on a hideous turnover, a French journalist in the press box could no longer contain himself. “Oh la la la la la laaah,” he moaned. Really.“From time to time, you do have a rough start,” Deschamps said. “It’s quite hard to meet the high expectation at a World Cup.”Whatever message was delivered at the intermission worked. So too did switching Olise to the middle and Dembélé to the right. Deschamps’ men dialed up their intensity and finally managed to slip the right sprockets into the correct gears around the hour mark.Olise was denied by Senegal keeper Édouard Mendy. So was Mbappé. And Sadio Mané was spared what seemed a stone-cold penalty kick on Mbappé, when even the assistance of VAR could not convince referee Alireza Faghani to make the right call.No matter. In the 64th minute, Olise spun into space centrally and rolled a beautiful through ball against the grain for Mbappé, who couldn’t quite get a toe to it. Nonetheless, they had found another at last. Proof of concept.Two minutes later, the two connected for much the same play. Mbappé made a run across goal and Olise found him with a splendid diagonal pass, paced and placed just so. Mbappé slotted past Mendy. The goal equalled Olivier Giroud’s all-time France scoring record at 57.After a smashed finish from Jackson was ruled offside, Rabiot scampered into the vacant midfield on a break in the 82nd minute and sent Bradley Barcola, fresh on to the pitch for Dembélé, through on goal and the substitute finished with a delicate chip.The 18-year-old Ibrahim Mbaye blasted Senegal on to the scoreboard, but Olise and Mbappé had one final treat for the 82,000 congregants in New Jersey. At the death, Olise fought through a Senegalese scrum and fed Mbappé up the middle about 30 yards from goal.And then Mbappé did the sort of thing that makes a nation pin its hopes on you, that moves children to beg their parents for your jersey, that compels a manager to leave you on the field even when you’ve had an objectively ugly game. He turned and, without any questioning or compunction about the propriety of even trying such a thing, unloosed a shot that swerved past Mendy. Fifty-eight international goals. 3-1.“He told me that he didn’t want to strike in a friendly match but wanted to score in a real match,” Deschamps joked about Mbappé’s record-setting goals. “He wanted to do it here.”No Frenchman on the field will remember this game as one of their best. Senegal, meanwhile, were good. Very good at times. And still. Mbappé. And Olise. Also Dembélé. The sorts of players who give their side, and themselves, a vast margin for error.“Kylian was efficient, ruthlessly efficient,” Deschamps said. “People will still criticize him. He’s an iconic player, I’ve always said that. He can sometimes miss a game but on one action he can really tip the scales.”There were smiles and hugs now. Mbappé led Les Bleus to the sea of French fans to thank them for their support. The first-half grimaces, all the poor touches, the passes played to the wrong foot, the routes misread, the signals crossed, all of it long forgotten.The French would be just fine. Because they have, well, all of them.

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This was an ominous start from the World Cup favourites. A sputtering first-half performance gave way to a second period characterised by a combination of physical intensity and technical ability that few club sides, never mind nations, can match. Add on a record-equalling, then surpassing, couple of goals for Kylian Mbappé and some superlative playmaking from Michael Olise and this was very much a job well done for Les Bleus.After Mbappé tucked away a superb Olise pass just after the hour, a match that had started as a keenly fought contest faded away into a procession.The substitute Bradley Barcola doubled the lead in the last 10 minutes before a chaotic period of added time gave Senegal brief hope before a second goal for Mbappé, his 58th for France, which made him his country’s all-time leading goalscorer, ahead of Olivier Giroud.With numerous New York Knicks players in the stands of the MetLife Stadium there was a golden aura lingering over proceedings before kick-off.The best openings in the first 25 minutes, or hints thereof, went to France, Ousmane Dembélé almost threading a pass to Mbappé in the box in the 11th minute, only for the captain to fail to get the ball under control. There was some casual chest control from Kalidou Koulibaly in the 14th minute that ceded possession dangerously, but ultimately to no harm to Édouard Mendy. In the 24th minute, the former Chelsea keeper was nearly robbed on the edge of his own box by Dembélé but just held on.After surviving this initial scrappy passage, Senegal began to assert themselves more and created the first chance proper in the 25th minute.A sliding tackle from El Hadji Malick Diouf seized possession and his quick ball sent Nicolas Jackson clear down the left. He sped into the box and got his shot off which hit the inside of the near post and a diving Mike Maignan was fortunate to see it deflect wide off his heel.The hydration break followed almost immediately and after that Senegal were the better side, composed off the ball and increasingly dangerous on the break. Just before half-time they should have taken the lead, but after Sadio Mané ghosted into the France box and laid the ball off, Ismaïla Sarr made a poor contact and his shot sailed over the bar.France were lacking a clear attacking identity, but also a physical intensity and it was no surprise to see them return after the interval fired up and more assertive off the ball. Desiré Doué got his first shot off immediately after the restart but bent the ball around a post. Five minutes later the Paris Saint-Germain forward started his own break that almost put Mbappé through, only for the ball to be taken off his toe.Then Olise had his moment, a turnover in midfield resulting in the Bayern Munich winger clear one-on-one with Mendy, only for the keeper to make a crucial sprawling save. Four minutes later and, this time, Olise sent Mbappé clear but again Mendy was out to get a crucial contact on the shot.By the hour mark the game had decisively changed, France were the dominant team and a goal felt like it could arrive at any minute. So when Mbappé burst down the right and forced Mané into a sliding challenge inside the box, there was a collective holding of the breath. The referee, Alireza Faghani, awarded a corner, video replays seemed to suggest a foul, but after Faghani was directed towards the monitor, he chose not to change his mind to the surprise of almost everyone in the ground.The decision, however unusual, did not affect the direction of this match as Olise and Mbappé continued to purr. Almost immediately Olise burst through the middle of the pitch and slipped a ball beyond the Senegal defence which Mbappé just could not reach. No matter, because the next time the ball came to Olise, around 30 yards out, he bisected two lines of the opposition with a superlative pass cutting right to left across the field. Coming left to right, meanwhile, was Mbappé. He beat everyone to Olise’s pass, turned back on himself and slotted a first-time shot into the net with consummate ease.Jackson had a couple of efforts for Senegal after the opener and blazed one of them into the top corner only to be ruled offside. But the sense that this contest had been decided was strong as Les Bleus continued to play at a level their opponents couldn’t reach.Dembélé was withdrawn for Barcola, a closer for club and country, and he eliminated all doubt when running on to another diagonal through ball, this time from Adrien Rabiot who had burst through the growing gaps in midfield, and chipped calmly past Mendy.The game may have been decided but there was more action to come in a frenetic period of added time. First, the substitute Ibrahim Mbaye slammed in a shot which Maignan could not stop. Then Mbappé, not to be outdone, blasted one from range too, which Mendy might have done better with. One down, seven more to go.

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There are some fixtures that need only the names of the teams to get us going and France v Senegal is one such, a meld of nostalgia, history and righteous indignation. “I think Senegal will win,” says Othmane Sonoko, former prime minister and speaker of the Senegalese parliament, “but in any case, whichever team wins, it is Africa that will have beaten Africa.”The teams, of course, met in the World Cup 2002 opener, a game which featured one of the great centre-forward displays from El-Hadji Diouf and one of the great celebrations following Papa Bouba Diop’s goal, which secured one of the great shocks. Nor did things improve for France thereafter, eliminated bottom of the group with one point and no goals, the worst-ever performance from a defending champion. The teams have not met since.But as Sonoko implies, they remain inextricably linked. France began colonising Senegal in 1659, it wasn’t until 1960 that independence was retaken, and it was less than a year ago that France gave up the last of its military bases. No country has more World Cup players born within its borders than France, who account for 98 of the 1248 – Netherlands are next with 67, then England with 49 – of which 10 are representing Senegal.And what a squad they’re part of, Senegal solid at the back, but a lot more interesting further forward. Lamine Camara is a dynamic midfielder who blends old school new, able to do a bit of everything but at warp speed and is, presumably, soon to arrive at a Premier League team near you; alongside him, Pape Matar Sarr is already there, and there are various excellent candidates to complete the trio, as well as 18-year-old Bara Sapoko Ndiaye of Bayern Munich, likely to be kept in reserve but a very serious talent. Then, up front, Sadio Mané and Ismaïla Sarr will presumably flank Nicolas Jackson, with Iliman Ndiaye and Ibrahim Mbaye ready to explode off the bench. If you’re gently whistling to yourself, fear not: so you should be.In 1863, when various bodies in England were trying to standardise the laws of the game, a dispute developed regarding the banning of “hacking”, deliberately kicking an opponent’s legs – a point on which Francis Maule Campbell of Blackheath Football club took a strong position. “You will do away with all the courage and pluck of the game,” he said, “and I will be bound to bring over a lot of Frenchmen who would beat you with a week’s practise.”Well, the 2026 iteration are more than able to take care of themselves should things become physical – just ask Fede Valverde – but boast perhaps the most ridiculous cadre of attackers ever seen. Whether Didier Deschamps can perm the best combination from those available – perhaps – then allow them to express themselves – almost definitely not – remains to be seen, but at any point, both of those aspects can be overriden by talent of intense and divergent brilliance.If there’s one thing the games we’ve seen so far have taught us, it’s that we’ve no idea from where our eternal moments are coming, just that they are. So it feels vaguely silly to be make a bold statement about this one, but the piquant ingredients make it the likeliest banger of the group stages, and decent barometer of where these exciting outfits are it. Chauette! On y va!