It was, as Paul Pogba's international captain Hugo Lloris all too happily put it, "the perfect response."
After dominating discussion in the buildup to France's match away to the Netherlands -- mostly because a poor performance against Bulgaria had led manager Didier Deschamps to state "he can and must to better" -- the Manchester United man then went and dominated this match in Amsterdam.
It was not just about Pogba's 30th-minute long-range strike that eluded the fingertips of Dutch goalkeeper Maarten Stekelenburg and gave the French a 1-0 win. It was about how that goal merely crowned a generally commanding performance, when he regularly eluded Dutch attention to put the ball wherever he wanted.