Five goals and a hat-trick: Dembélé finally establishes himself as France's secret weapon

Ousmane Dembélé has definitively silenced the doubts that weighed on him in the French national team. With five goals at the 2026 World Cup — including a decisive hat-trick against Norway in the group stage — the Paris Saint-Germain forward has established himself as one of the cornerstones of Didier Deschamps’ system.

Before the tournament began, his place in the French starting eleven was debated. Should he be deployed centrally, as Luis Enrique does at PSG, when that position belongs to Kylian Mbappé in the national team? Confine him to a wing, in a role he no longer occupies at club level? Or leave him on the bench in favour of a profile better suited to France’s system? The hat-trick against Norway, which followed a solid performance against Iraq (1 goal, 1 assist), swept away these questions in one stroke.

Since then, Dembélé has strung together high-level performances. In the round of 16 against Sweden (3-0), he provides the assist for Mbappé’s opening goal. In the quarter-finals, he scores the second goal, the one that kills the match (2-0). His return to top form comes at the precise moment when Michael Olise, brilliant at the start of the competition, is losing momentum.

The statistic that best illustrates this shift is historic: it is only the second time that the same national team has fielded two players with five goals or more at a World Cup. Mbappé is on eight, Dembélé on five — only Brazil in 2002, with Ronaldo (8) and Rivaldo (5), had achieved such a performance. Add to that the fact that Olise is the tournament’s leading assist provider, and the French attacking trio takes on a dimension that few teams can boast of fielding.

At the start of the competition, it was the Mbappé-Olise duo that commanded attention. Dembélé has changed the equation, and France is all the better for it.