There are World Cup performances that you watch and struggle to fully process. France's demolition of Sweden at the New York-New Jersey stadium on a sweltering afternoon in East Rutherford was exactly that kind of game — the sort where you only grasp what you have witnessed once the crowd has gone quiet and the replays begin. For the first half hour, Sweden were competitive. They sat deep, threatened on the break, and made Les Bleus work for every metre of ground.

Then, on 30 minutes, Adrien Rabiot thundered a drive that Jacob Widell Zetterström only just turned around the post, and everything changed. Kylian Mbappé hit the woodwork, Michael Olise scissor-kicked off the crossbar, and Zetterström stretched to deny Olise from 20 yards. The pressure was enormous, relentless, almost theatrical. When Mbappé's opening goal finally arrived — a short-corner routine ending in a bent finish of ridiculous precision from an angle that had no right to work — Zetterström had barely had time to breathe since the half-hour mark.

Mbappé added a second, drawing level with Lionel Messi in the race for the golden boot. Olise, who probably deserved a hat-trick on the balance of play, contributed two assists and a performance that had the stadium crowd on their feet repeatedly. France looked like a side that is deliberately pacing itself, which is perhaps the most alarming thing of all for their remaining opponents. Coach Didier Deschamps kept his language measured after the final whistle, warning that future opponents will raise their level.

"The teams we face are going to get better, so we need to fine-tune some things," he said. He is right, of course — but right now, it is very difficult to imagine who in this tournament is actually capable of stopping them.