Ballon d'Or winner Dembele still searching for a home in France team

NEW YORK, June 17 : If Ousmane Dembele arrived at the World Cup hoping his last two club seasons would finally establish him as one of the cornerstones of Didier Deschamps' France side, the tournament's opening match has instead reinforced a familiar question - where exactly does he fit in this team?

For all his success with Paris St Germain, where he reinvented himself as a central creative force and one of Europe's most influential forwards, Dembele remains a player searching for his place in the national team.

France's 3-1 victory over Senegal offered another illustration of the dilemma.

While Les Bleus produced enough attacking quality to ease past the African side, Dembele again struggled to make himself indispensable in an attack that increasingly appears to revolve around Kylian Mbappe and Michael Olise.

The emergence of Olise has complicated Dembele's quest to become France's attacking leader. The Bayern Munich playmaker has quickly developed an understanding with Mbappe, combining between the lines and helping drive many of France's most dangerous moves.

That connection has left Dembele operating largely on the right flank, a role that contrasts sharply with the freedom he enjoyed at PSG this season. In Paris, he drifted inside, dictated attacks and became the focal point of the European champions' offensive play. With France, he found himself wider on Tuesday, leaving room for the explosive Mbappe-Olise duo.

At a time when Mbappe and Olise appear to be forming the attacking partnership around which France are building their title challenge, Dembele is still trying to define his own role.

"The key question is what to do with Ousmane Dembele," Bixente Lizarazu, a 1998 World Cup winner, told French sports daily L'Equipe.