Kylian Mbappe netted his 20th FIFA World Cup goal as he bounced back from a saved first-half penalty to help fire France to a 2-0 win over Morocco in a quarter-final encounter in Foxborough, keeping his country’s hopes alive of reaching a third successive final.
France made a fast start to proceedings as they looked for a repeat of their early goal from their 2-0 semi-final win over Morocco in Qatar three-and-a-half years ago.
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Fortunately for Mohamed Ouahbi’s charges, Bono was alert to the early danger, scrambling across to his near post to push Kylian Mbappe’s low strike around the post, before reacting quickly to keep out Dayot Upamecano’s downward header from the subsequent corner.
After weathering the early pressure, Morocco adopted a deep and compact defensive structure in a bid to reduce the space for France’s array of attacking talent.
The risks of moving away from that conservative strategy became clear when the Atlas Lions were caught out in a rare foray forward in the first half, leaving room for Mbappe to drive into the box and draw a rash challenge from Noussair Mazraoui.
The Real Madrid star was then made to wait over three nervy minutes before he was permitted to commence his stuttered run-up that failed to deceive Bono, who demonstrated all of his penalty-saving expertise to guess the right way and comfortably gather a tame spot-kick.
Morocco scraped through to the respite of the half-time interval, but not before Lucas Digne struck the woodwork with an ambitious, dipping shot from distance.
France’s frustration continued in the early stages of the second period until Mbappe produced a moment of magic to break the deadlock on the hour mark.
Putting his penalty disappointment behind him, the 27-year-old took aim from the edge of the box, cleverly using Issa Diop to shape a curling shot that started outside the far post and finished in the corner of Bono’s net.
Morocco’s resistance was broken, and their semi-final dreams were soon quashed by Ousmane Dembele, who motored into the space created by Mbappe’s decoy run and applied enough power to his low shot to beat Bono’s defences.
At the opposite end of the pitch, Mike Maignan and company calmly dealt with Morocco’s brief, late threat to seal a third consecutive clean sheet, ensuring Les Bleus will head into Tuesday’s semi-final against Spain or Belgium with significant momentum behind them.
