Didier Deschamps, the French coach, spends no time considering how to stop Argentina from winning another World Cup title on Sunday; Morocco was defeated 2-0 by the defending champions in the semi-finals. When France faced off against underdog Morocco in the second semi-final on Wednesday night at the Al Bayt Stadium, it was billed as a matchup between a team with world-class talent and pure heart. In the end, France prevailed 2-0, but not without the Moroccans winning the majority of the 68,294 in attendance.
The Moroccans kept blowing sharply at their whistles—much more obnoxious than the vuvuzelas of 2010, which were eventually banned from many venues—each time their player touched the ball, and they jeered France every time they had possession. Before arriving here, Morocco had conquered Portugal, Spain, and Belgium, where their defensive strategy and sudden counterattacks worked. But Morocco coach Walid Regragui’s nine-man defense.
Which featured one striker and five deep defenders, four midfielders, and a world-champion French team, didn’t work against the French. After French forward Kylian Mbappe had a shot blocked in the fifth minute, teammate Theo Hernandez was able to control a ball that was bouncing around awkwardly and put it in the Moroccan goal.
Mbappe and fellow forward Ousmane Dembele repeatedly made quick runs into the Moroccan box, but their tough defense stopped them. But in the end, the North Africans gave in when another piercing run by Mbappe saw him dodge a lot of defenders and shoot, but the shot took a wicked deflection and ended up in the path of substitute Randal Kolo Muani, who scored in the 79th minute, 45 seconds after coming on.
The French defense is strong
Morocco’s Azzedine Ounahi and Hakim Ziyech made a couple of good runs while a dazzling bike kick by Jawad El Yamiq (44th moment) got the expectations of the vociferous group out of this world. However, it wasn’t to be as the French safeguard, driven by the brightness of Ibrahima (Ibou) Konate and regardless of the shortfall of the sickly Dayot Upamecanu and Adrien Rabiot, stood firm as France turned into the primary defending champions to arrive at the culmination conflict of the quadrennial show-stopper since Brazil in 1998.
After Italy (1934-1938), Brazil (1958-1962), Argentina (1986-1990), and Brazil once more (1994-1998), France became just the fifth defending champion team to return to the final in subsequent editions. Lionel Messi, from Argentina, is up next, and French coach Didier Deschamps is aware of how desperate the diminutive Argentine is to imitate the other God of football in his country, Diego Maradona, who led Argentina to the 1986 World Cup title.
It’s interesting to note that Deschamps, who is only the fourth manager to have led his nation to back-to-back World Cup finals, has beaten Messi four times (France beat Argentina 4-3 in the Round of 16), but he insists that experience won’t matter in Sunday’s final at the Lusail Stadium. Since the beginning of this competition, Messi has been exceptional. However, the Argentina team we played four years ago is not the same as it is today.
A decade ago…
The situation was different back then. At the time, I had an idea of where Messi would play, and he ended up playing center forward alone against us. However, he now shares the front line with Julian Alvarez, a center forward, giving him more freedom to control the ball and utilize his own abilities. “Our anti-Messi plan will consist of limiting his influence on the pitch for Argentina on Sunday,” said Deschamps, as France attempts to become the first team since Brazil in 1962 to retain the World Cup.