France reach the semifinals as Mbappé answers penalty miss with the winner
Didier Deschamps sprinted onto the pitch to join the celebrations as France's players mobbed each other after a 2-0 win over Morocco sent them into a fourth consecutive World Cup semifinal.
The scenes at Gillette Stadium said everything about how much this one meant. Moments after the final whistle, France's players piled together in a corner of the pitch, manager Didier Deschamps racing in to join them, as the celebrations turned to Kylian Mbappé at the center of the huddle.
It was Mbappé's night as much as the team's. The captain had missed a first-half penalty — saved by Yassine Bounou, his first-ever spot-kick miss at a World Cup — and looked to have handed Morocco an opening to cause an upset. Instead, he strode forward again in the 60th minute and drove a finish past Bounou to break the deadlock, then watched Ousmane Dembélé add a second six minutes later to settle it.
France now extend their unbeaten run to six matches without needing extra time in any of them, a record no other team in the tournament can match. Deschamps' side now know their semifinal opponent: Spain, 2–1 winners over Belgium, on July 14 in Dallas.
For Morocco, it is the end of the road at the quarterfinal stage for a second straight World Cup, this time falling to the same opponent, by the same scoreline, that eliminated them in the 2022 semifinals.