The Frenchmen steamrolled another opponent yesterday, easily beating rival Morocco 2-0, behind goals from Kylian Mbappé and Ousmane Dembélé, who have combined to score 13 times this tournament.France is now onto the semifinals and is one win away from making its third consecutive World Cup final.Subscribe to read this story ad-freeGet unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.Who could stop France? Perhaps Spain or Belgium, who play today in the second quarterfinal.
Our NBC News team will be live-blogging the game, so come follow along! World Cup RecapFrance barely broke into a sweat yesterday, despite the 89-degree temperatures at kickoff, as it brushed aside a disappointing Morocco 2-0 to reach its third consecutive World Cup semifinal.Instead, France’s fans — and coach Didier Deschamps — were left sweating about the fitness of captain and its goal scorer at the tournament, Kylian Mbappé, who went off injured late on after an eventful match that saw him miss a first-half penalty and score and assist in the second half.Images later showed the striker sitting on the bench with an ice pack on his right ankle.“I took a knock to the ankle, but I’m fine,” Mbappé said postmatch.Many players on this Morocco team learned their trade in France’s finest soccer academies and have played in the French league, and yet they couldn’t lay a glove on this outrageously talented French side.
The Atlas Lions badly missed the goal threat and relentless pressing of the injured Ismael Saibari.“When we had ball possession, our transitions were not great and we had to run a little more,” Morocco coach Mohamed Ouahbi said.“Their players were in their comfort zone.”Ousmane Dembélé of France scores his team's second goal against Morocco.Hannah Peters / FIFA via Getty ImagesMbappé’s opener in the 60th minute, a right-footed curler from the edge of the box, was his 20th career World Cup goal and came in just his 20th World Cup appearance...