Pitchside post

All information from FotMob.

Yesterday we saw France defeat Sweden 3-0 to send them home. France are one of the favourites to win the World Cup with their deadly attack. It was a domination from the France national team. France registered 25 shots on the Sweden goal 12 of them being on target. Managed to dominate the possession with 61% of the ball, and of course found the back of the net 3 times while keeping a clean sheet.

Mbappe masterclass

Yet again another fantastic World Cup performance from Kylian Mbappe, registering another 2 goals that now takes his overall goal total this tournament up to 6 goals which now means he’s joint 1^st in the golden boot race tied with Leonel Messi. Mbappe can go all season without scoring a goal for club and dominate in the World Cup, we know how good Mbappe is on the biggest stage and he’s proving it yet again this tournament. We saw PSGs Dembele and Barcola starting out wide alongside Bayern Munich magician Micheal Olise in the middle of the park. So, with these world class attackers around him we all knew Kylian Mbappe would flourish this World Cup, and he flourished this game. Registering a 9.4 FotMob official match rating, accumulating 55 touches throughout the game he was a thorn in Sweden’s side. He completed the joint most chances with 4 chances created (joint with Dembele) and the joint most dribbles complete with 3 successful dribbles (joint with Bradley Barcola). He had 4 shots on target out of 5 so a 80% shot accuracy, hitting the woodwork once. He made 5 passes into the final third so was also creating those chances for his teammates alongside being the main goalscorer. Mbappe is here to make the stage his own and he’s going the right way.

Olise magic

Micheal Olise has been untouchable this season off the right wing for club Bayern Munich, registering 52 goals and assists so there were high expectations surrounding him for the World Cup. He has most certainly met those expectations with his performances on the pitch. This game he touched the ball more times than any other player on the pitch with an astonishing 93 touches, so everything went through him, he was the conductor of Frances attack, and it showed, registering 2 assists. He has been the main creator for France throughout this tournament, and he certainly tormented this Sweden side. The French wizard completed 2 successful dribbles, had the most shots than any other player, and had an impressive 91% passing accuracy with 2 big chances created.

Isak missing

This season hasn’t been the best for English record signing Alexsander Isak. He got off to a tough start with very irregular minutes due to lack of fitness from the later stage of his time at Newcastle, then when it looked like he may get going he broke his leg vs Tottenham. He only scored 4 goals this season but only played 22 games a lot of these coming off the bench. However, this game was also a struggle for Alexsander Isak. It was always expected to be a tough game for the Swedish striker pairing Gyokeres and Isak. With Sweden needing to focus on defending a lot more than attacking the chances for Isak would have been far and thin, and that’s exactly what they were. He only registered 2 shots one on target, so he didn’t get much of a chance Infront of goal. Only registering a 0.17 expected goal rating. He only touched the ball 21 times that’s almost 4 times less than Olise. He created zero chances. This is not to say Isak was poor, it’s more he never really got a look in with the pure domination of France.

France now advances to the next round while Sweden go home.