FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — The whole buildup to this World Cup group finale was about two guys. Kylian Mbappe. Erling Haaland. The Ballon d’Or winner vs. the heir apparent. The box-office showdown everyone paid to see.
Then Norway’s coach Stale Solbakken decided to rest all 10 of his outfield players with first place still on the line. Haaland never left the bench. And the crowd that dropped thousands of Norwegian Krone to sit in a stadium that isn’t actually Boston started chanting for a guy who wasn’t playing.
Ousmane Dembele just went out and scored three goals in 25 minutes instead.
The Paris Saint-Germain winger did it the same way each time. Cut inside. Left foot. Top corner past Egil Selvik’s right hand. The first one arrived in the seventh minute off a ridiculous through ball from Mbappe, and it set a tone France never really let go of. By halftime Norway was already buried 3-0.
Super abundance in a country built on it
This is what France does now. You load up to stop Mbappe and Michael Olise picks you apart. You shade toward Olise and Bradley Barcola burns you on the flank. You try to track Barcola and Desire Doue drifts into space for his first World Cup goal late on.
One of them is going to get you. The reigning Ballon d’Or winner didn’t even score and France put up four goals anyway. That’s the kind of depth that makes you the favorite even when your own coach isn’t on the sideline — Didier Deschamps missed the match for his mother’s funeral, and the federation’s request to wear armbands in her honor was denied by FIFA.
The result still put France top of Group I and essentially onto the easier side of the knockout bracket, though calling anything easy in a tournament this deep is a stretch. Potential path: Germany, Netherlands or Morocco, then Spain. France doesn’t seem to care either way.
Where all this talent comes from
Running forward in this French attack is apparently like walking into a Whole Foods. Overwhelming choice. But it’s not capitalism that built this. It’s infrastructure. Facilities installed by local governments in every corner of the country. Talent amplified by immigrant communities that have turned Paris into one of the three most fertile football regions on earth alongside south London and Sao Paulo.
Funny thing is France’s domestic league is surprisingly mediocre for a country this wealthy. But that might actually help the national team. Dembele, Doue and Barcola came into this tournament fresher than their counterparts who grind through 50-match seasons elsewhere.
Dembele’s hat-trick also put him level with Mbappe in the Golden Boot race — both have four goals in the group stage. France is the first team since Poland in 1974 to have two players hit that mark. This expanded tournament also became the first World Cup with five players scoring four or more in the group stage.
Norway got a consolation goal from Thelo Aasgaard and had a penalty saved by Mike Maignan. Jorgen Strand Larsen watched Haaland watch from the bench. The traveling fans headed home grumbling about what might have been.
France just kept rolling. Dembele grabbed the match ball, Rabiot got a photo with him, and the team boarded the bus knowing they have so many guys who can go supernova that they don’t even need the same one to do it twice.
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