France began their 2026 World Cup campaign with a 3-1 victory over Senegal at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on Tuesday, a result that flattered the first half and celebrated the second. For sixty-six minutes, the most talent-dense squad in the tournament sleepwalked through a performance that raised every familiar question about Didier Deschamps and the stubborn gap between what this team is capable of and what it routinely produces. Then Michael Olise moved into the middle, and the questions dissolved.

The pre-match narrative wrote itself around 2002, when France, the reigning world champions, were knocked out of the group stage in South Korea by these same opponents in one of the great upsets in World Cup history. Deschamps, characteristically, refused to indulge it. "Most of my players weren't born in 2002," he said. "I was watching the game, I wasn't there. I know you like this revenge but there is no revenge in football." His squad, packed with players whose interests run far beyond football - chess, music, architecture - find the idea of sporting ghosts about as compelling as bandy odds posted in midsummer; noted, filed, immediately forgotten. What mattered was the present, and the present, for forty-five minutes, was laborious.

How a team featuring Kylian Mbappé, Ousmane Dembélé, Désiré Doué and Olise managed to produce a first half that left a packed stadium restless and indifferent is a question that has followed Deschamps through three tournaments. France reached the semi-finals of Euro 2024 without scoring a single goal from open play. Since then, Dembélé has won the Ballon d'Or. Doué collected the Man of the Match award at the 2025 Champions League final. Olise finished the club season at Bayern Munich with twenty-six assists. With such an embarrassment of attacking riches, France produced, again, precious little - at least until the interval.

The Olise Effect: Chess Moves on a Bobbly Pitch

In the first half, Olise spent long stretches closer to his own penalty area than Senegal's, dropping off the wing to help the centre-backs and Aurélien Tchouaméni circulate the ball through the phases. He beat his man directly only once before the break. Deschamps' adjustment at half-time - pushing Olise higher and through the middle, with Mbappé nominally wearing the No. 10 - changed the architecture of the game entirely.

A chess player by hobby, Olise conjured a move that Senegal's defence had not anticipated. His assist for the opening goal was the kind of pass that forces a rethink: the angle on it, the disguise, the timing. It dragged Senegal out of their low block and compelled them to play, which was precisely the last thing they wanted to do. Thierry Henry, working as a pundit for FOX and the man who coached Olise with France's Under-21s, reached for superlatives that felt earned rather than manufactured. "He is a dream come true. He doesn't play the game, he thinks the game," Henry said. "Michael Olise has an impact on games that I cannot explain."

The assist was Olise's tenth goal involvement for France in eighteen caps. Only Mbappé has been more prolific in that regard for the national team this century. That he conjured it on a surface Deschamps described with dry incredulity - "There might be some cement below the grass. You have very short shards of grass here" - made it all the more remarkable. Olise did not appear to notice. "In the second half, we greatly improved," Deschamps acknowledged. "(Michael) brought us more connection. We were cramped in a way. Michael has the ability to play both sides, the more chances he has to touch the ball the better he is."

Senegal's African Pride and the Road Ahead

Senegal arrived at MetLife as the reigning AFCON champions, a team that takes its continental status seriously and had cause to believe in a credible upset. For the best part of an hour, their low block held shape and denied France the space to accelerate. The 3-1 final scoreline understates their resilience in the first half and overstates their collapse in the second, though once France found their rhythm, there was little Aliou Cissé's side could do to contain them. The lesson from this fixture, as it has been for years, is not that Senegal were poor. It is that when France function, they remain extraordinarily difficult to live with.

For Deschamps, this was the opening chapter of what he has confirmed will be his third and final World Cup as head coach. He has made back-to-back World Cup finals from this position, grinding results with a blue-collar pragmatism that has never quite reconciled with the haute couture talent at his disposal. The second half against Senegal offered a glimpse, not a guarantee, of something more expressive. Whether it holds through the knockout rounds is the central question of France's summer. What Tuesday confirmed is that Olise, at twenty-three, is not merely a luxury item in this squad. He is the key that unlocks it - and on this evidence, Deschamps may find that keeping him contained is the one instruction even he cannot give.