Brilliant Mbappé breaks free of Moroccan resistance to send France into semi-finals
NO STOPPING HIM: Kylian Mbappe celebrates scoring his team's first goal during the FIFA World Cup 2026 Quarter Final match between France and Morocco at Boston Stadium on July 09, 2026 in Foxborough, Massachusetts. Pic: Molly Darlington/Getty Images
Head to toe in Liberté green, Kylian Mbappé had to carve out his freedom in Boston.
From whom? Well, everyone. From a refereeing crew who took some serious liberties of their own when they left him stalled on the spot with an absurd delay which preceded his missed first-half penalty; from Yassine Bounou, who had spent an hour repelling everything that came his way; from the rest of a Morocco side who reached a World Cup quarter-final and decided to turn into a team of negativity. The apathetic Atlas Lions went out — because Mbappé broke out.
On the hour mark inside Boston’s sweltering, soupy bowl, the France captain made something beautiful out of so little. Desire Doue, who’d done a superb job keeping Achraf Hakimi contained, sparked it with a little two-touch which fed Mbappé the ball on the edge of the box. He took one touch to control and step forward and another caress to push it out of his feet. Five Moroccans were within two yards of him. Not close enough.
Mbappé opened his right foot and whipped a gorgeous effort spinning through the roasting air, picking up heat as it went. It didn’t wrap inside Bounou’s post until it absolutely had to. When it did there was a sweet release. It unlocked French stresses and tied up Moroccan legs.
Just six minutes later Mbappé would be a provider of sorts, laying a little ball back to Ousmane Dembele as he strode from midfield. After so much stodgy Moroccan resistance there was suddenly none. Dembele moved forward and bent a shot around Noussair Mazraoui’s legs and past Bounou, who for once ought to have done better. And that was the game and Morocco — both gone in the space of six minutes.
For a team that roared into this tournament by piercing Brazil with pace and power and then scorching Scotland this was a pity and maybe even pitiful way to go out. The most meaningful Moroccan intervention may have been Issa Diop’s studs-down trod on Mbappé’s right ankle, the striker coming off early and spotted with ice on the injury. Didier Deschamps and his men will enjoy an extra day’s rest over either Spain or Belgium for Tuesday’s semi-final in Dallas.
Irrespective of who comes through in Los Angeles on Friday we can hope for a more even contest in terms of ambition.
If Morocco’s line-up hinted that containment would take the most precedence, the earliest exchanges confirmed it, neither Brahim Diaz nor Bilal El Khannouss quite playing up front in the unfortunate absence of Ismael Saibari. Line-up graphics showing a Moroccan 4-2-3-1 in one half of the pitch were right…that’s where they’d mostly be.
For the sake of the contest, an early French goal may have helped the most. In Al Bayt four years ago, Les Bleus found not just an early lead but one of the earliest, Lucas Hernandez’s scissor-kick the fastest semi-final goal for 64 years. It came after five minutes.
We were 50 minutes deep into this one before Morocco, playing more of a 4-6-0 formation, even managed a shot on Mike Maignan's goal, one which sailed well wide. Could France have been ahead by then? They absolutely should have been. Misfortune and malpractice were mostly what stopped them from doing so.
The other factor, a huge one, was Bounou. He stopped almost everything in the opening half, his goal frame stopping the lone shot which got past him, a Lucas Digne pildriver which rattled the bar two minutes into added time. Midway through the half, after Mazraoui had bundled over Mbappe, Bounou produced yet more World Cup penalty heroics. Handy heroics all the same. The scandalously long delay VAR check would be known in these NFL parts as icing the kicker. It worked, Mbappe never looking comfortable standing over it and Bounou saving a fourth World Cup penalty out of nine faced, three more of which went off target.
There were other chances too, Mbappe and Dayot Upamecano spurning a couple early on. With Manu Kone and Adrien Rabiot mostly controlling the middle Michael Olise probed without enough penetration and neither Doue or Dembele yet fully in the groove. For whatever they’re worth, the half-time xG charts said France should have 1.8 goals. Morocco? 0.04. Mbappe’s penalty had come on the break after Hakimi had his pocket picked on a rare Moroccan foray, perhaps proving the point of their pragmatism.
Mohamed Ouahbi’s Atlas Lions had shown themselves more shrewd hunters than the 2022 crew. But carrying a 34-game unbeaten streak in to the soul-sapping Boston heat, patience became their priority. After testing the patience of the Netherlands and Canada, it was an extreme strategy against France. Cameras caught them lingering in the tunnel before emerging for the second-half, more cynical stalling. Ultimately it was a flawed strategy.
We’d have to wait for the breath-taking moment that allowed Deschamps and France to finally breathe. That it came from Mbappe was altogether in-keeping with his own World Cup and that of the superstar strikers. His opener was his eighth goal of the tournament, enough to move him level with Lionel Messi. His layoff to Dembele gave him the lead on assists.
The ankle looked to have healed rapidly as he and his teammates hopped and jumped up the north end in front of the bank of French fans, Tricolores waving.
"Well I had a little knock on the ankle but everything is well now," he told a pitchside interviewer. "There was only one way for us to release tension and that is to get the victory."
Mbappe will have two more games here now. He'll hope that both of them matter hugely.
Maignan; Kounde, Upamecano, Saliba, Digne; Kone, Rabiot; Dembele, Olise, Doue; Mbappe.
Zaire Emery for Kone (70), Mateta for Mbappe (77), Barcola for Doue (77), Gusto for Kounde (86)
Mbappe (60), Dembele (66).
Bounou; Hakimi, Diop, Mazraoui, Saleh-Eddine; Bouaddi, El Aynaoui; El Khannous, Ounahi, Talbi; Diaz.
Amrabat for Bouaddi (61); Rahimi for El Khannous (61), Ouahdi for Saleh-Eddine (74), Yassine for Diaz (74), Sbai for Talbi (85).
Facundo Tello Figueroa (Argentina).
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