Few would have imagined such an early exit for France, the reigning world champion. Fewer would have foreseen no goals for its star striker Kylian Mbappe after four matches. The PSG forward has gone back home with the dubious record of taking 14 shots in return for futility. More important, Mbappe fluffed his lines in the penalty shoot-out to send the Swiss through. From the high of the 2018 World Cup to the low of Euro 2020, the Frenchman’s fall was as swift as it was painful.

Mbappe must be grateful that he missed a penalty in an earlier round. Twenty seven years after his failure from the spot in a Fifa World Cup final, Italian great Roberto Baggio is still nursing the injury. At 22 years of age, Mbappe still has the world at his dancing feet for the miss against the Swiss to become a blight. But Euro 2020 has reminded the flying Frenchman that he, too, is a mortal.

The incomparable Pele was quick to provide a shoulder for Mbappe to cry on with this message: Keep your head up, Kylian! Tomorrow is the first day of a new journey. How Mbappe would have wished it were so easy. The youthful forward’s rehabilitation might well start with a move away from the French capital in club football.

News emerging from France indicates that manager Didier Deschamps might stay on to have another crack at the World Cup. France should not follow the diabolical path of Germany that allowed Joachim Low to continue as coach well beyond his sell-by date. Low tried to live off his past while running out of ideas in the present.