Mbappé Missed the Penalty, Got Hurt, and Still Ended Morocco's Run

Boston, France vs. Morocco, quarterfinal.

That was one of the best games of this tournament so far — and I mean that as a compliment to both teams. Morocco threw everything they had at France tonight. It just wasn't enough. France won 2-0 and moves on to their third straight World Cup semifinal.

What actually happened

Mbappé had the first big moment and blew it — a penalty in the first half, after a three-and-a-half-minute VAR review to even award it, and he missed. For a second it looked like Morocco might make him pay for it.

Instead, France answered twice. Right before the second-half hydration break, Mbappé set up Ousmane Dembélé for a goal from outside the box. Then in the 60th minute, Mbappé made up for the miss himself and scored. 2-0, and Morocco never really found an answer after that.

The one scare: Mbappé came off in the 77th minute after stretching out his leg and waving to the bench. He told reporters afterward it was a minor ankle knock and that he's "completely fine" — but it was a tense few minutes watching him walk off.

A word for what happened to Mbappé

Knock, in sports slang, means a minor injury — nothing serious, but enough to need a look or a sub. When commentators say a player "picked up a knock," that's short for "got a little banged up, probably fine." Mbappé's own word for it afterward was exactly that.

France into a third straight semifinal.

Where this leaves Morocco

Morocco's Cinderella run — the term for a team that keeps outperforming expectations round after round — ends here, in the quarterfinals, same as it did in 2022. This one has a personal hook for me: Jinguk and I visited Morocco last November, so watching them go out tonight stung a little more than a neutral's loss usually would. They didn't back down, though. That counts for something.

Want to see who plays next?

Official FIFA schedule ↗

I still owe you the full account of our Morocco trip — it's coming. For now, I'm just glad I got to watch a real fight of a match after last Saturday's mess.

Subscribe if you're following the rest of the knockout rounds, and tell me in the comments.

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