Kylian Mbappe, France and the Game That Changed Everything

France's FIFA World Cup began in the 11th minute of their last-16 game against Argentina, when Kylian Mbappe sped past four opponents to win the penalty from which Antoine Griezmann would set his side en route to a dazzling 4-3 win.

The football world had been waiting for France to turn up. They had done the bare minimum in the group phase—scratchy wins over Australia and Peru as well as an instantly forgettable 0-0 draw with Denmark—but against Argentina, they suddenly sparked into life.

Mbappe's extraordinary run to win the penalty. Benjamin Pavard's exquisite equaliser after France had fallen behind. Mbappe's brilliant, quicksilver first goal and then the graceful, fatal passing move that produced his second. Mbappe through, Messi out. And France, in the space of 90-odd breathless minutes, had become the World Cup's team to beat.

In Paris, fans spilled onto the Champs-Elysees brandishing flares and Tricolor flags in scenes that immediately called to mind the human deluge that swamped the world's most famous avenue after France's triumph as hosts of the 1998 World Cup.

There were also scenes of celebration in Bondy, the district in north-eastern Paris where Mbappe grew up. Students from Lycee Jean Renoir, many clad in blue France jerseys, watched the match on a big screen in the school hall, a 20-minute walk from the pitch at Stade Leo Lagrange, where, 15 years earlier, a four-year-old Mbappe had taken his first steps as a footballer with local club AS Bondy.

Images of Mbappe adorned the front pages of almost every French newspaper the following day. For Le Parisien Dimanche, the match had been "MAGNIFICENT!" For L'Equipe, it was "MONUMENTAL." Regional paper La Voix du Nord punned on Messi's name and the French spelling of the word "messiah" ("messie") in a headline that read: "WITH MBAPPE AS MESSIAH!"

L'Equipe, France's widely read sports daily, declared the game "one of France's most spectacular matches in the history of the World Cup." Mbappe, it said, had "blown past [Argentina] like a tornado."

Daniel Riolo, a football pundit for prominent French radio station RMC Sport, confirms that football fever is beginning to take hold in Paris.

"You have to remember that in '98, when France won the tournament, it was after the quarter-finals that it caught fire," he told Bleacher Report in a phone call from Paris.

"That's when you started to see people everywhere and when people started going out after the victories. Before it was quieter. Now, with the quarter-final against Uruguay [on Friday] and then a potential semi-final against Brazil [on Tuesday], there's something to get excited about. There's a kind of expectation. I have the impression that people really believe in it."

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There has been some debate as to whether the win against Argentina should be considered a match d'anthologie ("historic match") given the feeble nature of the opposition, but there is widespread agreement that it could serve as a match de reference—a watershed match in the life of a team when everything clicks into place.

It had been a while since France's fans were last able to savour a World Cup victory over another major football nation. After reaching the final in 2006, France imploded in South Africa four years later. Although Didier Deschamps steered his side to a creditable quarter-final showing in Brazil four years ago, the only scalps that they claimed were those of Honduras, Switzerland and Nigeria.

There were some gripping moments during Euro 2016, notably a taut and totemic 2-0 victory over Germany in the semi-finals, but the hosts came up short against Portugal in the final. Despite the subsequent emergence of talents such as Mbappe, Ousmane Dembele and Thomas Lemar, France limped over the line in World Cup qualifying, losing 2-1 to Sweden and drawing 0-0 with Belarus and Luxembourg.

The warm-up games for the World Cup were more convincing—wins over Ireland and Italy followed by a 1-1 draw with the United States—but as Deschamps tinkered with the configuration of his attack, the feeling persisted that this team was not the sum of its parts. Against Argentina—albeit a tired, obliging Argentina—it suddenly and thrillingly was.

"In a survey carried out at the start of this World Cup, when the question was, 'Do you enjoy watching France?' less than 60 percent of people said yes," Riolo says.

"It's not that the relationship [between the team and the fans] wasn't good. Everyone supports the team. But because the team had been very boring for so many years, there was a drop in passion.

"It's almost like a man who stops looking at his wife because they've been together for 20 years. And then all of a sudden, as the match against Argentina was so crazy, she seems 20 years younger.

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"It hasn't just strengthened the relationship, but the passion has come back as well. Everything seems to have been erased, and everyone's united in thinking that France can go all the way."

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The match against Argentina may also have represented a changing of the guard.

Ever since Paul Pogba captained France to victory in the Under-20 World Cup in 2013, the nation has been waiting for him to take charge of the team. During Euro 2016, when Pogba's influence was sporadic, it became Griezmann's team. The win over Argentina suggested that it could soon become Mbappe's.

Vincent Duluc, L'Equipe's lead football writer, is covering his ninth World Cup and has been struggling to think of a more impressive individual display by a French player at the tournament.

"I remember a great performance by Dominique Rocheteau against Northern Ireland at the '82 World Cup. There are also historical memories of Just Fontaine in '58. But in the World Cup, [Michel] Platini never had an impact like that [in a single game], and neither did [Zinedine] Zidane," Duluc told Bleacher Report.

"Platini did it during Euro '84, but not at a World Cup. Zidane did it from set-pieces during the 1998 World Cup final and in the quarter-final against Brazil in 2006. But it wasn't to the same extent. When a player makes the difference all on his own in a knockout match like that...

"At a stretch, you could compare it to [Lilian] Thuram's two goals against Croatia in 1998. That was crazy. But it had never happened before and it never happened again."

Mbappe would have had the limelight all to himself had it not been for the stupendous goal scored by Pavard, who met a cross from Lucas Hernandez with a sumptuous half-volley that swerved irresistibly inside the left-hand post.

The 22-year-old Stuttgart defender with the mop of curly brown hair was a virtual unknown in France when Deschamps awarded him his first call-up in November. Having capitalised upon an injury to Djibril Sidibe to claim the right-back berth, he has emerged as one of the most engaging characters in the squad.

France midfielder Adil Rami has nicknamed him "Jeff Tuche" after the lead character from a 2011 French comedy film about a family of provincial bumpkins who win the lottery. Pavard has also contributed to two compelling pieces of television, first suffering a fit of giggles during an interview on TF1 and then crying when a video message from his parents was played to him during an episode of Sunday morning magazine show Telefoot.

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"Nobody knew the guy," Riolo says. "He came into the France team, and I'm willing to bet that most people wouldn't have even known where he played.

"And you know, he wasn't great against Argentina. Two goals came from his mistakes. But he equalised at a moment when people were starting to think that it was over—and with an extraordinary goal. Plus he's got a bit of a funny head, with his frizzy hair and everything, so he's got everything you need to become the darling of the team."

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Deschamps is running a characteristically tight ship at France's World Cup base in Istra, 40 kilometres north-west of Moscow. The players have been given only limited amounts of free time to spend with their families, and training sessions routinely take place behind closed doors.

Nevertheless, it appears to be a happy camp. The players' Instagram accounts have supplied plenty of evidence of high jinks, with Rami, Pogba and Benjamin Mendy the chief mischief-makers. The unity within the squad was apparent in the way that the substitutes flooded onto the pitch to celebrate Mbappe's two second-half goals against Argentina.

"It's relaxed. There's been no tension," Duluc says. "Since the beginning of the tournament, there's not a single guy who's been annoyed by a question at a press conference. It's been very calm and very relaxed."

Should France prevail in Friday's quarter-final against Uruguay in Nizhny Novgorod, Deschamps will have succeeded in achieving the objective set out by French Football Federation President Noel Le Graet ahead of the tournament. He will also be two matches away from becoming only the third man to lift the World Cup as both player and coach after Mario Zagallo and Franz Beckenbauer.

England's supporters may be convinced that "it's coming home," but France's fans beg to differ. The World Cup was devised in France, after all, so if the trophy really is "coming home," its destination will be Paris.