France continues its march towards the World Cup final with what turned out to be a pretty straightforward quarterfinal against Morocco.

Goals from Kylian Mbappé and Ousmane Dembélé wrapped up a 2-0 win as Les Bleus go through to the semifinals, where they will play either Spain or Belgium.

Les Bleus dominated from the first whistle and just had to wait until the second half to score two goals in the space of six minutes.

But just as everything looked to be running smoothly, star man Kylian Mbappé went down. You could see the attacker was wincing a bit and looked straight across to his manager who was rapidly sorting out a replacement from the bench.

It didn’t look too worrying but Mbappé did limp off the pitch and was seen with an ice pack around his ankle. Hopefully, it was just precautionary.

Morocco barely laid a glove on their opponents, bringing to an end a campaign that had promised so much.

It’s easy to forget that in getting this far, the Atlas Lions became the first African team to qualify for the quarter-finals in successive World Cups but that’ll be little consolation to Mohamed Ouahbi’s side who had hoped to build on their stunning 2022 campaign.

 

They depart the competition as Africa’s last remaining representative but there’s no denying that the future of the game in the country looks bright.

The investment and buy-in from the government is there, their talented youngsters will only continue to grow in maturity and stature in the coming years and with the North Africans co-hosting the 2030 edition of the tournament, the prospects bode well.

All of France will now turn their attention to Friday’s quarterfinal matchup between Spain and Belgium.

Spain go into the game as favorites and a win for La Roja could set up a mouth-watering rematch of the 2024 European Championship semifinal against the winners from Thursday.

Goals from Lamine Yamal and Dani Olmo gave Spain a 2-1 win on that occasion as Luis de la Fuente’s side overturned an early deficit.

 

More recently, Spain and France played out a thriller in the 2025 Nations League semifinal. Spain picked up a 5-4 win in that one, with Yamal scoring a brace.

Belgium’s recent record against France, however, is far from favorable.

The Red Devils have lost five on the bounce against France including a 1-0 loss in the 2024 European Championships and another 1-0 defeat in the 2018 World Cup semifinal.

Belgium will be hoping it can right the wrongs from its time in Russia eight years ago with revenge against France this time round – if they beat Spain that is.

It’s safe to say France will be cheering on Belgium for this one on Friday.