Men’s World Cup Quarterfinals Live Blog: France 2-0 Morocco — Full-time!

zippyThu, Jul 9, 2026·6 min read

FT: France 2-0 Morocco. France to the semis!

Observations from full-time:

• France, the scariest team in this tournament. It’s unfair how good they are going forward, and they controlled the proceedings throughout.

• Ousmane Dembélé is the reigning Ballon D’Or holder, has five goals, and he’s not even touching the Golden Boot race.

• Morocco went rather meekly into the night. They held on to the nil-nil for a while but France’s goals were inevitable. Or is it inevitablé?

• Morocco’s best chance came from Dayot Upamecano. But the Bayern Munich center-back had a good game overall.

• Germany is probably looking at this and thinking, oh, so that’s what you can do with a defense. Why not? Germany’s attackers, while not as star-studded a cast, are the team’s strength. It is maddening how German setups continue to maximize defensive vulnerability.

90+5’ — Morocco tries a speculative shot from nearly half court. It goes way over.

83’ — Morocco chance! Free kick results in a lined up shot from distance that is all too easily conceded for Ounahi. Though he hits it with power, it’s still well-saved by Maignan.

77’ — Uh-oh? Mbappé is down and slow to get up. He’s substituted in a double change for France but looks OK, waving to the crowd as he walks off.

73’ — Swing! Dayot Upamecano goes for a clearance but slices it. It flies dangerously up in the air and backwards…and over his own net.

66’ — GOAL! 2-0 France! The floodgates are opening now. Ousmane Dembélé races through the center of the pitch and bends his shot past Noussair Mazraoui into the bottom corner. Made it look easy.

60’ — GOAL! France 1-0 Morocco. Mbappé strikes! Some Golden Boot race, this. The Real Madrid star takes a few (stutter???) steps and curls it beautifully from the edge of the box.

56’ — Olise sighting! The Bayern winger fights through traffic to slip Mbappé in inside the box. The shot is over-hit, though, and it was offside anyway.

55’ — Chance for France. Koné with quick ball recovery in midfield and equally fast progression for Doué. Shot ultimately not the most threatening and from range. It’s another save for Bounou’s account.

46’ — The second half has kicked off.

• It’s been a quiet — dare I say boring? — game so far. Even the lone moment of real goal anticipation, Mbappé from the penalty spot, was dampened by an aggravatingly lengthy penalty check that had the Frenchman shrugging his shoulders before stutter-stepping his way to a tame shot.

• Morocco keeper Yassine Bounou is starring at another World Cup, and has made several great interventions already in this one. He’s the only thing keeping Morocco in the game.

• France is playing patient and probing. They’ve got Morocco by the throat and both teams seem to know it. As long as it stays 0-0, though…

• 45+5’ — Morocco win a free kick in a dangerous area after a handball on Adrien Rabiot. Achraf Hakimi shanks it, though, and there’s the half-time whistle.

  45’ — There’s space for between the lines here as two teasing French passes forward have shown in the last few minutes. Unfortunately for Les Bleus, both were overcooked just slightly. One of these times, France will slip it in behind.

  35’ — Désiré Doué has a crack at it after dribbling through the center. Well saved!

  29’ — We have reached to pausa de hidratación. Sponsor us, Coca-Cola!

  26’ — Kylian Mbappé wins a penalty, which is upheld after a lengthy VAR check. The Real Madrid superstar stutter-steps…and it’s easily saved by Yassine Bounou!

  21’ — Adrien Rabiot follows in the footsteps of Dembélé and heads his effort off target.

  18’ — Ousmane Dembélé heads his effort towards the far post but his attempt goes just wide.

  16’ — Achraf Hakimi blasts the free kick from deep over everyone and out.

  4’ — Yassine Bounou produces a big save to deny Dayot Upamecano!

  Kickoff! — We are underway!

  Welcome to the Bavarian Football Works daily Men’s World Cup match thread! Every day during this tournament we will have a feature thread for discussion of the day’s matchups.

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  And then there were eight. The World Cup field is starting to become The Usual Suspects. Morocco is the last CAF team standing, though, and has a chance to shock France. Paraguay played Les Bleus tough, and this will be a test to see if Didier Deschamps’ much-touted, star-studded cast can do it on a disgustingly humid summer night in Boston.

• France vs. Morocco (4:00 PM EDT)

Via FotMob, both teams have their lineups out. Bayern Munich’s Dayot Upamecano and Michael Olise continue to star for France, while as previously announced, incoming Bayern winger Ismael Saibari is still out with a hamstring injury.

Just for fun! Drop yours below. Today, we are predicting no fun: