Mbappé, France lethal vs. Morocco in reaching World Cup semifinals

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Kylian Mbappé scored a stunning goal after missing a first-half penalty to move level with Lionel Messi in the race for the Golden Boot and fueled France to the World Cup semifinals with a 2-0 win against Morocco.

Mbappé’s 60th-minute opener — a curling shot beyond Morocco goalkeeper Yassine Bounou — gave France the lead after Bounou’s earlier save from his spot kick. And having frustrated France for long periods, Morocco then suffered the double blow of conceding again just six minutes later, when Ousmane Dembélé made it 2-0 for Les Bleus.

After beating Morocco in the semifinals at Qatar 2022, France confirmed their status as favorites to win this World Cup by overcoming their toughest and highest-ranked opponent so far. Didier Deschamps’s team will now face the winners of Friday’s quarterfinal between Belgium and European champions Spain in the semifinals Tuesday in Dallas. — Mark Ogden

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Mbappé and France can strike at any moment

Bradley Barcola said it the other day in the most natural way possible: “We just play like if we were playing with our friends in our neighborhoods.”

Every kid in Paris, Marseille, Lyon or Toulouse can relate to what the Paris Saint-Germain winger was saying. This French attack is so lethal in this World Cup because it plays like street football: with flair, technique, movement, relentlessly, until your mom or dad calls you home for dinner.

Mbappé, Dembélé and Michael Olise, with the support of Désiré Doué and Barcola, have been unstoppable. The first three now have 23 goal involvements in this tournament. That’s three more than the three Rs, Ronaldo, Rivaldo and Ronaldinho, for Brazil in 2002, when they won it all.

Mbappé is the best player in the world right now. He became the first French player to reach 100 goal contributions with the national team with his goal, and now he has 101 after his assist. He already has eight goals in this World Cup, matching his last one in 2022, to become the first player in history to score that many in two World Cups. He has 20 goals in 20 World Cup games in his career. He is just 27, and he simply keeps breaking records, like he has done all his life.

Morocco tried different plans, one deeper and defensive in the first half and one slightly more attacking in the second half. The French attack created chances against both and forced Bounou to make great saves. When there are no spaces, Doué is a killer. When the space opens, Barcola sprints into it. The front four, the Fantastic Four, the Four Musketeers — whatever you want to call them — were great again.

They should have scored five or six, but their two goals were exceptional, with a special curler from Mbappé and a typical Dembélé finish (note the run by Mbappé, by the way, to make more space for his teammate). Two beauties, two gifts to football … like this French attack. — Julien Laurens

Watch out in 2030 — Morocco are ready to contend

Morocco have established themselves as the strongest nation in Africa after building on their semifinal appearance in 2022 with a run to the quarterfinals this time — and losing to France on both occasions. But for a more favorable draw, Mohamed Ouahbi’s team could have gone further in this competition.

France are the outstanding team at the tournament by some distance, so it would be harsh to suggest that Morocco have gone backward by reaching the last eight this time. Aside from Bounou, none of Morocco’s starting players in this game are older than 30, while midfielder Ayyoub Bouaddi is only 18, so the majority of this group will still be around in 2030, when Morocco co-hosts the tournament with Spain and Portugal.

Morocco have a flourishing underage setup, and they have successfully tapped into their huge community, with players born in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. That will only continue.

They still have their issues, such as a lack of adequate cover for the attacking threat of the injured Ismael Saibari and no real depth at the back without the injured Nayef Aguerd, Romain Saïss and Jawad El Yamiq. But with four years to build ahead of a World Cup in which they will play on home turf, Morocco could develop into a genuine contender to win the tournament and become the first African nation to do so.

Rather than regress from Qatar 2022, Morocco have shown they have solid foundations on which to build going forward. — Ogden

France’s supporting players are the unsung stars

Take out the Norway game, when Stale Solbakken played his B team and France scored three times in the first 32 minutes, and Didier Deschamps’ crew has put together some ridiculous defensive numbers in the other four matches, against Senegal, Iraq, Sweden and Morocco. Just 2.33 xG conceded, giving up 23 shots, just four of them on target. And of the very few chances France give up, few are what Opta calls big chances. In fact, from the start of the second half of the opener against Senegal (and excluding the Norway chaos), they’ve given up just two shots with an xG greater than 0.10.

OK, Iraq, Sweden and Paraguay might not be particularly good, but Morocco and Senegal contested the last Africa Cup of Nations final. This is what you call shutdown defending. Part of it is the center backs, William Saliba and Dayot Upamecano, being very good. But part of it is that when teams sit deep and try to play on the counter, they often struggle to be effective in transition.

A lot of that is down to the midfield pair of Adrien Rabiot and Manu Koné, who took over after Tchouameni’s injury. Both have put on their hard hats for Deschamps at this World Cup, adapting into roles that are more defensive than what we see from them at club level, with AC Milan and AS Roma. Their selflessness and humility allow Deschamps to play with such an attacking front four, because one or the other is usually around to wreck most opposing counterattacks before they reach the final third.

On the flip side, you wonder how the Rabiot-Koné axis would work against a team that maintains possession, commits people forward and presses in the middle of the park, like, say, Spain, whom they could face in the semifinal. Deschamps will cross that bridge when he comes to it. But, for now, he knows that without sterling work from his back seven, we wouldn’t be losing our minds over his front four all the time. — Gab Marcotti

Bounou immense but can’t do it all for Morocco

The game was effectively over once Dembélé scored France’s second goal after 66 minutes. But Morocco were only still in it at that point because of Bounou’s performance in the first half.

The 35-year-old saved an early header from Upamecano, then stopped Mbappé’s spot kick to make it four penalty saves in his World Cup career. Before the first half was done, Bounou also made a good stop from Doué and tipped Lucas Digne’s long-range effort onto the crossbar.

There was nothing he could do about Mbappé’s goal. The backlift was so short, and the penalty area so crowded, that he barely saw it.

He will be disappointed with his role in Dembélé’s goal; he wasn’t helped by his defenders, but he got a good hand on it. His wrist just wasn’t strong enough to keep it out. Still, Bounou has had another good tournament. He was fantastic in Qatar and has impressed again here. Lots of the African goalkeepers have done well, such as Cape Verde’s Vozinha.

The question now is whether Bounou will still be around in 2030. He will be 39 at the next World Cup, but there will be an emotional reason to stick around given it will be partly hosted by Morocco. He has shown this summer that he’s still more than capable at this level. — Rob Dawson