France beat Morocco to reach a third straight World Cup semi-final
Second-half goals from Mbappe and Dembele send Les Bleus through, though Mbappe limped off with an ankle knock.
France booked their place in the semi-finals of the 2026 World Cup with a commanding 2-0 win over Morocco in Boston, second-half goals from Kylian Mbappe and Ousmane Dembele carrying Les Bleus into the last four for a third tournament running.
It might have been more straightforward still. Mbappe won a first-half penalty after a long VAR review, but was made to wait more than three minutes to take it and saw his spot-kick saved by Morocco goalkeeper Yassine Bounou, leaving the game goalless at the break despite France's heavy pressure.
The captain made amends after the restart. In the 60th minute he curled a beautiful effort around Issa Diop and inside the far post for his 20th World Cup goal and his eighth of these finals. Six minutes later Dembele doubled the lead, driving forward and squeezing a low finish past Bounou to settle the contest. France's dominance was total, an expected-goals count of 3.04 to Morocco's 0.14 telling the story of a one-sided quarter-final.
The win carried history with it: France became only the third nation, after Brazil and Germany, to reach three consecutive World Cup semi-finals, and it repeated the scoreline of their 2022 semi-final meeting with Morocco in Qatar. Mbappe, now the only player with ten or more direct goal involvements at two different World Cups, again looked the difference between the sides.
The one blot for France was his early exit. Mbappe asked to be substituted in the 77th minute, sat on the turf briefly and was later seen icing his right ankle on the bench, a worry for a side that will face either Spain or Belgium in the semi-final next week.
