France Gets the Details Right to Break Morocco’s World Cup Spell

It was another imperfect performance from Les Bleus, but Kylian Mbappé & Co. have themselves one win away from a title defense.

AL KHOR, Qatar—Just about every French touch, and every one of their surprisingly infrequent forays into the opposition half, was greeted with the shrill whistle of thousands.

The clamor took Wednesday’s semifinal—a game that already came with stratospheric stakes—and injected it the sort of fervor and partisan tension that’s often missing at a World Cup. Tens of thousands of Morocco supporters, in unison, were piercing the Qatari night even in the most innocuous moments. They whistled France goalkeeper Hugo Lloris. They whistled throw-ins. Robust, baritone chants were frequent, completely overwhelming the small section of Les Bleus fans camped behind Al Bayt Stadium’s north goal.

This competition's home team, Qatar, had come and gone silently, leaving no impression. The hosts lost all three of their group stage games and scored just one goal. And so Morocco became the de facto rooting interest for this country, this region of the world and for every neutral yearning to see soccer’s established order overturned.

These Atlas Lions were already legendary before stepping onto the field with the reigning world champions on Wednesday. Led by a French-born coach and French-born captain, Morocco stunned Croatia and Belgium in the group stage then ousted Mediterranean neighbors Spain and Portugal, yielding just one own goal across its five matches. With each step, support swelled. The euphoric scenes on streets throughout Morocco were matched here in Qatar and in expat communities in Europe and elsewhere. Anyone who was inspired by, or identified with, the first African World Cup semifinalist or the first Arabic-speaking World Cup semifinalist, jumped aboard the bandwagon.

Morocco was the home team, decisively, at Al Bayt.

"The world is proud of this Moroccan team because we showed great desire. We worked hard. We played honestly, with hard working values, and these are the values we wanted to show on the football pitch,” said coach Walid Regragui, who took the job less than three months before the tournament opener. “I think we gave a good image of Morocco and a good image of African football.”

They did. But those values and that earnestness weren’t enough Wednesday. It wasn’t enough to defeat a French team bolstered by the planet’s most unrelenting talent development system, the experience earned from having won the 2018 World Cup and the pedigree that always seems to boost the big teams in the big moments. It isn’t enough to overcome France’s jaw-dropping depth or superstars like Kylian Mbappé and Antoine Griezmann, who’ve taken hold of this World Cup tighter than anyone who isn’t Lionel Messi.

“You can’t win a World Cup with miracles,” Regragui said.

Just five minutes into Wednesday’s semifinal, Morocco’s World Cup spell was broken. France center back Raphaël Varane played a beautiful ball through the right channel to Griezmann, who beat several defenders and cut a cross back to Mbappé. His shot was deflected, but veered toward a wide-open Theo Hernández at the left post. Great players make their own luck.

“A shot can go your way or not. You need a little rub of the green,” Griezmann said.

An advantage in quality at the top of the roster goes a long way as well, and it was the difference in a 2–0 match that France will feel fortunate to have won. The Lions were in control for much of the second half. But Les Bleus move on to meet Messi and Argentina in Sunday’s final, where one of those teams will win its third World Cup. Morocco, which was worn thin with illness and injury (captain Romain Saïss, a center back, exited midway through the first half) will settle for one of the most inspiring exits in recent World Cup history and a shot at bronze on Saturday against Croatia.

“It’s great to have got through to the final,” said France coach Didier Deschamps, who’s 90 minutes away from lifting the World Cup for a third time (once as a player and twice as coach). “It wasn’t an easy victory. We showed our quality, experience and team spirit. We had to dig deep in the challenging moments in the match, and as a coach I’m very proud and pleased with my players.”

Mbappé’s battle with the Moroccans defense was fierce, but the French winger ultimately was a difference-maker :: Manu Fernandez/AP

Morocco’s spell was broken by the fifth-minute breakdown, but its will remained intact. It handled the early deficit with poise. Saïss’s injury forced a tactical adjustment and with four defenders instead of five, the Lions were able to find their footing going forward. Midfielder Azzedine Ounahi, whose round-of-16 performance elicited a “Madre mía” from Spain coach Luis Enrique at his press conference after the 22-year-old from Casablanca ran circles around La Furia Roja, was strong and proactive with the ball and repeatedly forced the French into retreat. Both teams hit the post later in the first half.

After halftime, Morocco marauded down the French right, where Hernández, midfielder Youssouf Fofana—starting in place of the sick Adrien Rabiot—and Mbappé were frequently overwhelmed. Some desperate clearances and emergency defending were needed to keep the Lions at bay. The crowd roared. Here were the world champions, a seven-time semifinalist, pinned back by an unheralded side gracing this stage for the first time. But there was no one in Moroccan red able take that advantage, or bottle that momentum, and forge the chance that might change the game.

“Small details help real champions win. We saw that tonight,” Regragui admitted. “Of course they’ve got a lot of substitutes as well that can come in and make a difference, and that’s what happened.”

In the 65th minute, Deschamps shifted Mbappé to center forward in place of the tiring Olivier Giroud and inserted Marcus Thuram, whose father, Lilian, was the hero of France’s 1998 semifinal triumph, at left wing. That flank was strengthened, while Mbappé became more available as a target on the counter. Morocco was doomed.

Fourteen minutes later, France’s Aurélien Tchouaméni, the 22-year-old Real Madrid midfielder whose importance skyrocketed following the injury to N’Golo Kanté—that’s championship depth—launched a counter and found Youssouf Fofana. He located Mbappé, who exchanged passes with Thuram and then made four Morocco defenders look sea sick before his shot was deflected right into the path of wide-open substitute winger Randal Kolo Muani. He’d stepped on the field only seconds before.

“Morocco impressed me tonight. In the second half they created a lot of opportunities and caused problems for us,” Griezmann said. “The fact that we scored an early goal made things easier for us as well and then our second goal made it more comfortable. But it’s a tough game. It comes down to small details.”

Regragui said, “We wanted to try to score to make them doubt their lead, but unfortunately you pay for any mistakes you make, and we did.”

Teams that live on the margins, that expend everything to progress through a World Cup, pay for mistakes. Teams with talent and depth to spare can get away with one now and then. France wasn’t that good against England in the quarterfinals and wasn’t that good against Morocco at Al Bayt. But Les Bleus have learned to master the moments that decide World Cup games, so they’re now on the threshold of an historic repeat (Brazil’s 1962 team was the last to do it.)

The postgame celebration was somewhat muted. France briefly saluted its small cohort of fans, but it was nothing like the extended rapture that followed Argentina’s defeat of Croatia.

That semifinal was played before a very blue-and-white crowd at Lusail on Tuesday. The collective desire to see Messi finally check off that last, gilded box and cement his special level of immortality may be even stronger than the wind that’s been at Morocco’s back. France is the efficient favorite, the team with all the advantages. But it's not going to garner much sympathy here. Les Bleus were the antagonist in Morocco’s story on Wednesday, and they’ll probably be that again in the final. France stood in the way of the people’s team. Next, it’ll stand in the way of the people’s player.

“Against Belgium, I cried,” Griezmann said of his reaction following the 2018 semifinal in Russia. “Now, I think I’m more focused. I’m already focusing on the final on Sunday, and I’m trying to keep my feet on the ground. I’m trying to remain composed and focused.”

Deschamps said, “It’s always a battle out there. … We weren’t perfect against England and we weren’t perfect against Morocco.

“They put us under a lot of pressure and perhaps we could’ve played better,” the coach concluded. “But in a final against Argentina, both teams are playing a better team than they’ve played so far in the tournament. We have two sides with a great deal of quality, and it’ll be up to the players to make a difference. Maybe the team that makes fewer mistakes is going to win the game. Whoever manages to do that will win the match.”