Mbappé shrugs off a penalty miss to eliminate Morocco in Boston. In Los Angeles, the tournament’s most complete team meets its golden generation’s last chance.
France are in the semi-finals. That much is confirmed, and it was confirmed in the manner that has become their signature at this tournament: controlled in possession, dangerous on the break, and decisive in a six-minute window when the match demanded it. Kylian Mbappé missed a penalty in the first half against Morocco on Thursday in Boston, then scored the goal that ended the contest in the sixtieth minute and set up Ousmane Dembélé for the second six minutes later. Morocco, without the injured Ismaïl Saibari, could not find a way through a French defensive structure that has now gone the entirety of this World Cup without conceding a goal in open play. France 2-0 Morocco. Six wins from six. Les Bleus will play the winner of tonight’s Spain versus Belgium quarter-final in Dallas on Tuesday — Bastille Day.
That second semi-final place is still being decided. Spain and Belgium kick off at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood at 3pm ET this afternoon, in a fixture that pitches the tournament’s most structurally disciplined team — unbeaten, still without a goal conceded across six matches — against a Belgian side that has found, somewhat improbably, the highest-scoring form of its tournament run at the worst possible moment for its opponents. The winner faces France. The loser ends a tournament that has, for both sides, exceeded expectation in different ways.
Thursday, Boston: France and the Six-Minute Solution
The narrative of France’s quarter-final against Morocco will be written around Mbappé’s penalty miss, which is appropriate because it was the only genuinely uncertain moment in a match that Les Bleus otherwise controlled with the composed authority of a team that has not yet been required to discover its absolute ceiling.
Morocco, without Saibari, set up at Gillette Stadium in a familiar low block — compact, organised, conceding possession deliberately and waiting for France to make an error. For twenty-seven minutes, they held. Then Noussair Mazraoui brought down Mbappé in the area, and after a VAR delay of three minutes, Mbappé stepped up and drove his penalty to the left. Yassine Bounou dived right, reached left, and saved it. Morocco had their moment. Bounou had already denied Désiré Doué with a low stop at full stretch and had kept out a Bradley Barcola header with his legs. France’s xG at half-time was 1.8; Morocco’s was 0.1. The score was 0-0.
The second half opened and, within fifteen minutes, the match was settled. In the 60th minute, Mbappé received from Barcola wide on the left, cut inside Yahia Attiat-Allah, and curled a right-footed shot into the far corner past a diving Bounou. His eighth goal of the tournament. He jogged back to the centre circle without celebrating, as though scoring in a World Cup quarter-final were a routine administrative task. Six minutes later, Mbappé drove forward from deep, found Dembélé arriving from the left channel, and Dembélé’s curled finish made it two. France’s fifth goal from a combination involving those two players at this tournament. Morocco produced their best attacking spell in the final twenty minutes — Ounahi’s driven shot forced Maignan into his most demanding save of the evening — but there was no route back. France advance with a 16-2 goal differential across six matches, having not required extra time in a single one.
The statistics around this France side are beginning to accumulate in ways that recall great tournament teams. They are the first team since Brazil in 2002 to have two players score five or more goals in a single World Cup: Mbappé on eight, Dembélé on five. Michael Olise has five assists, one short of Pelé’s all-time tournament record. Mbappé now has 22 career World Cup goals, level with Messi entering the semi-finals, and has scored in seven consecutive World Cup appearances. Deschamps, whose side will face either Spain or Belgium in Dallas on Tuesday, said after the match: “We are exactly where we wanted to be. The players have a duty to do everything they can to go as far as possible. We’ve cleared a major hurdle.”
Morocco exit at the quarter-final stage for the second consecutive World Cup, having also reached this round in Qatar 2022. They leave as the first African nation to reach back-to-back World Cup quarter-finals, and with a team that, under new manager Mohamed Ouahbi, demonstrated they belong among the world’s top ten sides. Ayyoub Bouaddi, their 18-year-old midfielder, became the youngest player to make five World Cup appearances for an African team. These are not consolation statistics. They are the foundation of what comes in 2030.
The Case for Spain, the Case for Belgium
Spain arrive at SoFi Stadium tonight as the quarter-final’s statistical favourite in almost every meaningful category. They have not conceded a goal since their opening group-stage draw with Cape Verde — a run that now extends to 609 minutes and counting, surpassing every previous World Cup goalkeeper record for consecutive clean sheets. Unai Simón has faced five shots on target across six matches. Rodri and Pedri have established a midfield partnership that has been the structural backbone of what is, in possession metrics, the tournament’s most dominant side. Lamine Yamal, still only 18, has been threatening to produce the decisive individual performance his quality promises but has not yet quite delivered in the knockout rounds. Tonight, against a Belgian side that will press high and with intensity from the first whistle, the space may finally exist for it.
Belgium’s case rests on three weeks of evidence that this squad performs at its highest level when the occasion is largest. Their tournament has been defined by late interventions: Tielemans’ brace against Senegal, De Ketelaere’s brace against the United States, Lukaku’s opportunism from the bench in multiple matches. In their last three knockout games they have scored twelve goals. The question that Spain’s record poses is whether Belgium can score at all against a defence that has, across six matches, permitted their opponents an average of 0.4 expected goals per game. The answer will determine the other semi-finalists.
Belgium are without Amadou Onana, their holding midfielder, who suffered an ACL injury against the United States and is out for the remainder of the tournament. His absence is the single most significant personnel factor entering tonight’s match: Onana’s role of disrupting opposition build-up play in the press was the primary mechanism through which Belgium have created the space their forwards exploit on the transition. Against Rodri and Pedri — arguably the finest central-midfield partnership at this World Cup — Orel Mangala, his replacement, faces the most demanding ninety minutes of his international career. Whether Kevin De Bruyne, who was rested against the United States and is not fully match-fit, starts or comes from the bench will be Rudi Garcia’s most consequential selection decision.
For both sides, the match carries stakes beyond the immediate result. Spain have not reached a World Cup semi-final since winning it in 2010 — sixteen years ago, a span that encompasses two group-stage exits and a round-of-16 defeat on penalties. For Belgium’s generation of De Bruyne, Courtois, and Lukaku, who are collectively 33, 33, and 33 respectively, tonight is the last realistic opportunity to reach a World Cup final before the format or the years close the door. The three-man core that promised so much in 2018 and delivered a quarter-final exit has one more match to define what the golden generation was actually worth.
Golden Boot, Semi-Finals, and the Road to MetLife
With France through and Spain or Belgium to follow, the semi-final picture entering Thursday was: France versus Spain or Belgium on Bastille Day in Dallas; and on the other side, the winner of Saturday’s Norway versus England in Miami against the winner of Argentina versus Switzerland in Kansas City, meeting in Atlanta on Wednesday 15 July.
The Golden Boot race entering the semi-finals: Mbappé eight goals, Messi eight goals, Haaland seven, Kane six, Oyarzabal four. Three of the five are still in the tournament and will play on Saturday. The race between Mbappé and Messi — both on 22 career World Cup goals in total — is the individual narrative running underneath the collective one. If both score in the semi-final and final, the record will be decided by goals neither man can yet count.
The final is on 19 July at the MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford. The bracket’s most probable final, on the basis of tournament form, is France against Argentina — a repeat of Qatar 2022, played in the same stadium where Messi lifted the trophy three and a half years ago. Whether Spain, Norway, or England have anything to say about that begins in Los Angeles in a matter of hours, and continues in Miami on Saturday morning. Tonight, first, the question that has defined this quarter-final stage from the moment the draw was made: can anyone score against Spain?
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