NEW YORK, July 1 (Reuters) – France’s march \u2060into the World Cup last 16 has been built on an attacking force so relentless that comparisons with some of \u2060the greatest forward lines in football history are no longer sounding premature.<\/p>\n
With Kylian Mbappe, Ousmane Dembele and Michael Olise combining \u200cfor 11 goals and nine assists through four matches, and Bradley Barcola adding two goals and an assist despite not being guaranteed a starting place, Didier Deschamps has assembled an attack capable of overwhelming opponents in waves.<\/p>\n
France have scored 13 goals in four games, 12 coming from Mbappe, Dembele, Olise and Barcola.<\/p>\n
It is a level of \u200bconcentration of attacking production rarely seen at a World Cup. The last trio to \u2060produce more goals at a single tournament was Brazil’s \u2060celebrated 2002 front three of Ronaldo (eight), Rivaldo (five) and Ronaldinho (two), whose combined 15 goals carried Brazil to their fifth world title.<\/p>\n
Whether France can match \u2060the \u200cultimate achievement remains to be seen, but they are beginning to force their way into a conversation usually reserved for the likes of Brazil’s 1970 champions and Hungary’s dazzling 1954 team.<\/p>\n
“When you look at the attacking potential we have, even in the history \u2060of football, it’s very rare,” midfielder Aurelien Tchouameni said after France’s 3-0 victory over \u200bSweden.<\/p>\n
The numbers only tell part of the \u200cstory.<\/p>\n
MBAPPE’S PACE<\/p>\n
Mbappe’s pace terrifies defences, Dembele’s unpredictability stretches them beyond breaking point and Olise has become the creative hub, his \u2060vision and silky touch \u200blinking everything together. The understanding between the three appears to deepen with every game.<\/p>\n
Olise has provided five assists, leaving him one short of equalling Pele’s World Cup record of six in 1970, and he and Mbappe have now combined for six World Cup goals, more than any attacking duo in tournament history.<\/p>\n
Deschamps believes \u2060Olise belongs among football’s elite.<\/p>\n
“He’s in that category. Kylian has been there \u200bfor a long time, but because of what Michael is doing with Bayern Munich and what he’s capable of producing for us, yes, he belongs in that category too, just like Ousmane,” the France coach said.<\/p>\n
“The understanding between our attacking players is excellent. It’s not just that they get \u2060on well as people. They speak the same football language, and from that point on, everything moves in the right direction.”<\/p>\n
Yet France’s wealth of attacking talent extends well beyond the starting side.<\/p>\n
Barcola has scored twice despite sharing minutes with Desire Doue on the left wing and Rayan Cherki provides another game-changing option from the bench. Jean-Philippe Mateta, who scored 12 Premier League goals this season, has barely featured and Marcus Thuram’s \u200binjury \u2014 after a 13-goal Serie A campaign \u2014 has gone unnoticed.<\/p>\n
Perhaps most striking of all is that \u2060Deschamps has persuaded a collection of elite forwards to work as hard without the ball as they do with it.<\/p>\n
“The collective comes before everything \u200belse, and Kylian, as captain, is the best example of that,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I understand \u200csome players can be disappointed because they’re not playing enough or not \u200bplaying at all. There’s frustration. But you have the spirit of a team. That alone doesn’t win matches, but I know all too well that the lack of it can make you lose them.”<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Julien Pretot, editing by Ed Osmond)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK, July 1 (Reuters) – France’s march \u2060into the World Cup last 16 has been built on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":772621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,13201,596,85,21418],"class_list":["post-772620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fifa","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/772621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}