The France savior who was told he wasn't good enough for Euro 2016

Before the European Championships, there was no shortage of talk about France's abundance of talent and its excellent chances of winning the title on home soil. However, most of the conversation was centered on the likes of Antoine Griezmann, Paul Pogba, Anthony Martial and N'Golo Kante.

And yet, over the course of the group stage, the man who had been deemed not good enough almost singlehandedly hauled France into the knockout round.

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Dimitri Payet has produced a string of sparkling performances to lead the French into the Round of 16, where they will face the Republic of Ireland on Sunday. And of the players who've shined the most in the group stage, he has been the lone standout for France.

Payet has been the savior of Les Bleus. In the final minute of regulation time in the Euro 2016 opener against Romania, with the score tied at 1-1, the French were headed for an underwhelming draw. But as the match approached stoppage time, Payet struck out of nowhere, collecting a pass from Kante, opening up a yard of space amidst a crowd of Romanian defenders and curling a left-footed wonder strike into the top corner to settle the score at 2-1.

Payet, who who had set up Olivier Giroud for France's first goal, walked off the field victorious with tears of joy streaming down his face.

In the French's next outing against Albania, the West Ham United winger came through again deep into extra time, curling in another wonder strike from the edge of the box for a 2-0 victory and effectively sealing France's passage to the knockout stage. Even in the final group stage match – a lackluster scoreless draw with Switzerland – Payet nearly provided the breakthrough, coming on as a substitute just past the hour mark and rocketing a shot off the crossbar 10 minutes later.

Not bad for a player whom just a few months before the Euros had been told his performances were "not enough" to be included in the team by France coach Didier Deschamps.

Despite coming off a career season with West Ham, Payet's career trajectory has not been the meteoric rise to the top that some of his teammates have enjoyed. Unlike Pogba, who plays at Juventus, or Kingsley Coman, who spent last season on loan at Bayern Munich, Payet doesn't play for one of the top clubs in the world. The 29-year-old is more journeyman than prodigy, having worked his way through the ranks of French soccer playing for a number of different Ligue 1 outfits.

After showing early promise at Nantes and St. Etienne, Payet transferred to Lille in 2011 and, in his second season with the club following Eden Hazard’s move to Chelsea, earned a regular starting place in the attack. He finished the season as the league's co-leader in assists to earn a spot on the Ligue 1 Team of the Season.

However, it was at his next port of call, Olympique de Marseille, where Payet really laid the groundwork for his breakthrough. In his final season with L'OM he scored seven goals, made 17 assists and provided more through balls than any player in any of Europe's top leagues except for Barcelona's Lionel Messi.

Still, despite this, he was a relatively inexpensive acquisition for West Ham, which paid just over $15 million for him last summer. It turned out to be the bargain buy of the season, with the Frenchman scoring nine goals and making 12 assists in a Premier League season that saw him shortlisted for PFA Player of the Year and named "Hammer of the Year" by his club.

And so, despite Deschamps' earlier insistence that Payet "does not do the same thing" for France as he does for his club, the Reunion Island-born winger's performances for West Ham were ultimately too compelling to ignore.

Recalled to the French squad for a pair of friendlies in March, Payet hit the post and created six chances in a 3-2 win against the Netherlands, before scoring on a free kick and making an assist for Coman in a 4-2 win against Russia a few days later. Deschamps was ultimately forced to renege on his earlier statement. In May, Payet was named to France's squad for the Euros.

In a stacked team where competition to break into the lineup is thick, Payet has beat out the likes of Martial, Mathieu Valbuena, and Hatem Ben Arfa for a starting spot on the wing in the attacking 4-3-3 Deschamps has favored thus far. It's been a long, winding road to this point for a player who, as a teenager, had been hailed as "the next Zinedine Zidane" only to find himself frozen out of the national team for years at a time as he reached his early twenties.

But now, in a squad laden with world-class talent, Payet has emerged as not just the best player for France but also one of the best players at Euro 2016. He's also put to rest any remaining doubts his coach might have harbored about him.

"I have no doubts over Dimitri and the influence he can have on the game. He can make the difference," Deschamps told Sky Sports after Payet’s late winner against Romania.

His West Ham boss, Slaven Bilic, has been working as a TV commentator during the Euros and been singing Payet's praises. Bilic even climbed atop a table to celebrate one of his star player's goals.

With a game against the Republic of Ireland on Sunday in the Round of 16 and a likely run-in with England awaiting in the quarterfinals, France has a discernible path to the semis. And if the French make it to the final four, as the saying goes, anything is possible.

Because Payet is living proof of that. And the unlikely hero just might carry France all the way to the final of Euro 2016.