EAST RUTHERFORD, New Jersey - France uncorked a Champagne performance on Tuesday to sweep Sweden aside 3-0 with a display of attacking verve and precision and book their place in the World Cup last 16.
The scoreline flattered Sweden. France’s flamboyant attack might have reached double figures were it not for the woodwork and a series of near-misses measured in millimeters. Paraguay lie in wait, and the exhilarating football France produced here will do little to help the South Americans sleep before their last-16 meeting.
At the heart of it all was French captain and talisman Kylian Mbappe. From the start it had been clear he was a man on a mission.
Mbappe’s two goals lifted his World Cup finals tally to 18, one behind Lionel Messi on the all-time list. Remarkably, those goals have come in just 18 matches, with his double here taking him to six for the tournament.
By the final whistle Sweden looked less like beaten men, more like beaten-up men, after 90 minutes hauling themselves round the New York-New Jersey pitch trying to keep up with the precise French passing.
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The temperature on the pitch felt even hotter than the 32 degrees Celsius officially recorded in East Rutherford, but for Sweden it might as well have been the surface of the sun as they visibly wilted under a relentless French onslaught.
Mbappe was at the center of everything. He had a long range shot saved in the 16th minute and had the ball in the net four minutes later. The effort was ruled out for offside, but Sweden had been warned.
Hydration break boos
The match was scoreless by the time the packed stadium roundly booed the hydration break, as has become customary among soccer fans angered by the effective introduction of four quarters to a game traditionally separated by two halves. For once, though, nobody could doubt the justification as the haggard Swedes looked out on their feet.
The jeering fans were swiftly distracted by a deafening rendition of Jon Bon Jovi’s Livin’ on a Prayer before the match resumed but there was to be no divine intervention for the Scandinavians.
Mbappe rattled the post just after the half-hour as he inched ever closer and finally broke the deadlock on 45 minutes when, from a pass by Ousmane Dembele, he jinked and skipped and slammed a right-foot shot past Jacob Widell Zetterstrom.
The pair have now combined for six goals at World Cup finals, more than any duo in tournament history, moving clear of Germany’s Michael Ballack and Miroslav Klose, and Poland’s Grzegorz Lato and Andrzej Szarmach.
The French among the more than 86,000 in the stadium erupted and Mbappe, followed by the entire French team, ran to Didier Deschamps on the touchline to embrace the coach just back in the U.S. after attending his mother’s funeral.
France came out for the second half in the same fashion. Sharp, precise and dangerous.
After squandering a handful of gilt-edged chances by the finest of margins France finally recalibrated their slide-rule precision in the 53rd minute, when Bradley Barcola lofted the ball past the Swedish goalkeeper to double their lead.
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Twenty minutes later Mbappe had his second, clipping the ball past the keeper from a deft through-ball from Michael Olise.
In the 84th minute, Deschamps brought Mbappe off and the captain left to rousing cheers from the crowd after a masterclass that hammered out France’s intentions.
