How dangerous is a team that seems to do nothing, that allows itself to be dominated, and that still exudes all kinds of dangers. This is France, world champion, who will sit on Sunday on the Argentine couch in a high final, confident that her sparing but resounding speech will turn off Argentina’s loquacity. The desert World Cup will put Messi and Mabppé face to face in a dream farewell after Les Bleus woke up Morocco this Wednesday from one of the most beautiful dreams in football history.
France wants to be even more like Brazil, the last one capable of repeating the title 60 years ago, although to achieve this they will have to recover all their ambition. Deschamps’s against Morocco was a minimal team, a version that, however, was enough to qualify. Argentina is warned.
Nor was Regragui fine in the most important game of his career. He put the entire weight of the African continent and the Arab world on his shoulders in the preview with an admirable plea that seemed to play a trick on him. He is part of the Morocco World Cup legend thanks to giving up the ball, joining lines and showing infinite tenacity. Master lines always drawn with the same scheme. But the Moroccan coach chose to put a personal touch on the matter against France and the canvas ended up in the trash. He opted to further reduce the spaces with a third center-back and after five minutes he was already behind on the scoreboard.
The world was being turned upside down in Al Bait’s tent. Morocco, the team with the second least possession of the entire tournament, had the world champion locked in, moving the ball from side to side. The scene was so unprecedented, they were so accustomed to stealing and running, that when they looked at themselves in the mirror they screamed in fright. Yamiq mistimed, Griezmann entered the area alone and the play, after a rebound from Mbappé’s shot, ended with Theo Hernández’s acrobatic shot into Bono’s net.
If Morocco was already having a hard time assimilating such a new match scenario, the goal ended up stunning them. He tried to hide Ounahi with a powerful shot from distance to which Lloris reacted well, but the African team didn’t recognize each other, it was obvious. Quite the opposite of France, who cares as much about having or not having the ball, capable of punishing the rival with an endless arsenal. With goals from a left back and an almost unprecedented striker in a World Cup semifinal.
Bono’s post violently repelled a shot from Giroud. The stands, redder than ever, rubbed their eyes. He seemed to be waking up from the dream with a bang. Also Regragui, to whom Saïss’s relapse gave him the perfect excuse to rectify and redraw his team as always. He grew France and that made Morocco improve, worth the paradox, seeing from then on the game that was expected.
It was not enough for France with some threat of a supersonic career from Mbappé or with a strategic shot from Varane to send the rival to the canvas. The Moroccans went to the changing rooms not only with more possession than the blues, unheard of, but also with the same number of posts, after El Yamiq’s bizarre Chilean kick when he drowned in the first half.
The tension of the semifinal emerged after the break and the show benefited from that. It didn’t take big chances, there weren’t any, for Morocco to embarrass the French, too conformist, too confident that the engine would respond if they needed to press the accelerator. The respectable dreamed of equalizing despite the fact that Lloris barely intervened. Ziyech grew and the duel gained height.
Regragui oxygenated his attack as he could while Deschamps walked much more contemplative, more sure of himself. Hamdallah, one of the freshest, wasted the lightest, unable to shoot after doing the hardest. He added the merits of Morocco but he had the most dangerous rival in the tournament in front of him, capable of giving you a slap if you looked away. This is how the sentence was drawn up. Mbappé pulled a rabbit out of his hat and Kolo Muani, in the first transcendent ball he touched in the entire tournament, sealed the passport to the final at will.
The road to Morocco ended in Qatar, but the football skies opened wide before a huge final between the king and his heir. Between certainty and dream. Lusail awaits you all on Sunday. The wait will be eternal.
2- France: Lloris; Kound, Varane, Conate, Theo Hernandez; Tchouaméni, Flying; Griezmann; Dembele (78), Giroud (Thuram, 65), Mbappe
0- Marruecos: Bono; Hakimi, El Yamiq, Dari, Saiss (Amallah, m.21), Mazraoui; Ziyech, Ounahi, Amrabat, Boufal (Aboukhlal, m.66); En Nesyri (Hamdallah, p.66)
Goals: 1-0, m.5: Theo Hernandez; 2-0, m.78: Kolo Mouani
Referee: César Ramos (MEX), admonished the Moroccan Boufal (27)
Incidents: Qatar World Cup semifinal match played at the Al Bayt stadium in Al Khor before 68,294 spectators, including French President Emmanuel Macron.
