France To Meet Argentina For The World Cup Final After 2-0 Win Over Morocco
France, the defending champions ended the feel-good story of the World Cup on Wednesday, beating Morocco 2-0 on goals from Theo Hernandez and Randal Kolo Muani. Next up is a meeting in Sunday’s final against Argentina and Lionel Messi, whose glittering résumé is only missing a World Cup title.
France is the first defending champion to reach the final since Brazil in 1998. Les Bleus will try and avoid the fate of Ronaldo and Co. that year – they lost to France – and instead duplicate the feat of another Brazilian team, the 1962 squad that is the last to repeat as champions.
Morocco does still have the third-place game, at least. The Atlas Lions will play Croatia, the runners-up in 2018, on Saturday.
Morocco is the first African and Arab nation to reach a World Cup semifinal, and the Atlas Lions have become the tournament’s darling along the way. Their fans have filled stadiums across Doha and its outskirts – only Argentina traveled stronger – and the Souq Waqif has looked like Casablanca or Marrakesh for all the Morocco flags and jerseys there.
The players celebrate their victories by tossing coach Walid Regragui into the air and dancing with their mothers.
Morocco was more than a plucky underdog, though. It came into the game having conceded just one goal, and an own goal at that, and it knocked off Belgium, Spain and Portugal to reach the semifinals.
It looked early as if Les Bleus might cruise into the final as Argentina did over Croatia. In the fifth minute, Antoine Griezmann dribbled up the right side and into the box and, not seeing any opening, crossed to Kylian Mbappe in front of the goal. Mbappe got swallowed up by several Moroccan defenders, and they were able to clear the ball out.
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France defender Ibrahima Konate (24) heads the ball against Morocco’s Achraf Dari during the first half of the semifinal match at Al Bayt Stadium.
But it fell to Hernandez, who extended his left leg high in the air and connected on a volley. The angle was perfect, the ball going down rather than up and over the crossbar, and Morocco goalkeeper Yassine Bounou had no chance at it.
For much of the rest of the game, however, France had to hang on as Morocco created chance after chance. Jawad El-Yamiq nearly had the goal of the tournament in the 44th with a bicycle kick that hit the post, and Sofyan Amrabat and Yahya Attiat-Allah both missed early in the second half.
Les Bleus finally gave themselves some breathing room in the 79th thanks to the brilliance of Mbappe.
Mbappe did Perrine Laffont, the 2018 Olympic gold medalist in women’s moguls, proud as he slalomed his way through a knot of Moroccan defenders in the box. Spying Kolo Muani, who’d come on just seconds earlier, near the goal, Mbappe crossed to him.
The ball was deflected, but Kolo Muani was still able to pick it up and slot it past Bounou. All that was left was to run out the clock on one team’s dream and look forward to spoiling that of another.