France beat Morocco 2-0 on Thursday and moved into the World Cup semifinals, with Kylian Mbappé again at the center of it all. He missed a first-half penalty, then scored in the 60th minute and set up Ousmane Dembélé’s goal six minutes later.
The result sends France one step from another final and keeps alive a run that has now stretched deep into the tournament for the second straight World Cup. France will face either Spain or Belgium on Tuesday in Arlington, Texas, while Morocco’s break from the quarterfinals ends here.
Mbappé’s match had the kind of swing that turns a routine win into a remembered one. In the 25th minute, Noussair Mazraoui fouled him in the box and Facundo Tello pointed to the penalty spot. Yassine Bounou stopped the kick in the 28th minute, and France spent the rest of the half pressing hard, building a 13-1 edge in shots on goal before the break. Achraf Hakimi also flashed a free kick just wide before halftime, but Morocco never found a clean answer to the pressure.
France finished with a 21-4 advantage in shots on goal and an 8-1 edge in shots on target, numbers that matched the feel of the match. Mbappé’s strike was his 20th World Cup goal, leaving him one behind Lionel Messi in the career scoring race at the tournament, and Dembélé’s finish was his fifth of the competition. By then, the bigger concern was whether Mbappé would finish at all. He was taken off in the 77th minute after going down midfield, and later appeared on the bench icing his right ankle.
France had beaten Morocco by the same score in the semifinals of the 2022 tournament in Qatar, and Thursday’s win carried the same cold edge. The difference now is the next match is one game away, not one round away from the final. If Mbappé is fit for Tuesday, France enters it with its best finisher still in stride; if not, the semifinal will test how much of this run depends on him.
