FOXBOROUGH – Kylian Mbappe had already seen his 28th-minute penalty pushed away by Yassine Bounou when, with the game still scoreless and an hour played, he cut left and curled his eighth goal of the tournament into the far corner. Six minutes later, Ousmane Dembele arrived to steer a low finish through Bounou’s reach. France 2, Morocco 0 at Gillette Stadium, and a World Cup rematch four years in the making was settled in a ten-minute second-half burst that Morocco had no answer for.
France are in the 2026 World Cup semifinals, defeating Morocco for the second consecutive major tournament by the same scoreline, advancing to face either Spain or Belgium in Arlington, Texas on Tuesday. They were the better side across most of the night. The final score did not flatter them.
Morocco arrived without the injured Saibari, who had been forced off in the 22nd minute of their 3-0 win over Canada in the round of 16 and was unable to recover in time for Thursday’s quarterfinal. Soufiane Rahimi, who had replaced him against Canada and scored in stoppage time, remained in contention for Thursday. The Atlas Lions failed to register a shot on target until Azzedine Ounahi’s free-kick in the 83rd minute forced France goalkeeper Mike Maignan into a late save. Maignan was not seriously threatened before that moment.
The first half was shaped by a VAR review. In the 28th minute, after a lengthy check, the referee awarded France a penalty. Mbappe stepped up and Bounou guessed correctly, diving to push the ball away. The miss could have changed how Morocco approached the second half. It did not change how France played. Les Bleus maintained possession, kept their shape, and made Bounou the busiest player on the pitch without finding the breakthrough until the 60th minute provided it.
Mbappe’s goal was the kind that separates him from the players who share a pitch with him. Receiving on the move inside the area, he shaped his body early, cut across the ball, and bent it into the far corner before Bounou could reset his feet. The strike was his eighth of the tournament, extending his Golden Boot lead, and continued a tournament-long run in which France’s route to every knockout stage result has depended on him producing in the moments that count.
Dembele’s finish in the 66th minute confirmed the win. He arrived late on the left side of the area and his low shot went through Bounou’s attempted save to make it two. Morocco manager Mohamed Ouahbi began adjusting, but the personnel changes could not address what Thursday revealed: without the pace and directness that Saibari had provided in earlier rounds, Morocco lacked the vertical threat needed to test France in transition.
Ounahi remained in the starting XI and was one of Morocco’s better performers across the 90 minutes. He had scored twice against Canada in Houston and covered ground effectively on Thursday, but his 83rd-minute free-kick toward the top corner, which Maignan palmed away cleanly, was Morocco’s only serious test of the French goalkeeper in the entire match.
France’s semifinal destination is Arlington, their opponent still to be decided by the Spain-Belgium result. They entered this tournament ranked first among the quarterfinalists in most serious assessments, and Thursday’s performance reinforced rather than complicated that standing. The defensive structure that limited Morocco to one shot on target has held throughout the knockout stage. Based on the quarterfinal power rankings, France remain the team the others are trying to stop.
For Morocco, the defeat closes a run that built deliberately on their 2022 semifinal. They became the first African nation to reach consecutive World Cup quarterfinals, through defensive discipline and collective organization that had not been broken until Thursday. They were beaten by the better side in a match where the absence of a key attacker was felt across the entire 90 minutes. Al Jazeera reported Morocco’s players acknowledged France’s quality in post-match comments without citing injury as a primary explanation for the result.
Mbappe was substituted late and received a standing ovation from the French supporters in the stands. His tournament continues Tuesday in Arlington. Whether France’s World Cup continues beyond that depends on who emerges from Spain-Belgium and what they can produce that Morocco could not. On Thursday in Foxborough, France had the answers that mattered.
