Mbappé misses a penalty, scores the winner as France end Morocco's run

On Thursday, Kylian Mbappé had the sort of afternoon that would end most players’ careers in therapy. He missed a penalty in the 28th minute, Yassine Bounou guessing right and punching it clear, then spent half an hour looking like a man who’d blown France’s ticket to the semifinals. In the 60th minute the ball came back to him off a rebound and he buried it like none of that had happened. France beat Morocco 2-0 in Boston, and Mbappé walked off with a goal that mattered more than the one he’d missed.

Mbappé’s Golden Boot math gets weird

That 60th-minute finish was Mbappé’s eighth tournament goal, pulling him level with Lionel Messi at the top of the Golden Boot table. He leads anyway, on the assists tiebreaker: three to Messi’s one. Ousmane Dembélé made it 2-0 six minutes later, his fifth goal of the tournament and the kind of finish that makes a striker’s slump-proof season look easy. Morocco’s Achraf Hakimi hit a post before the break, the closest his side came to troubling the scoreboard all night. France now wait in Dallas for the semifinal on July 14, facing whoever survives Friday’s Spain-Belgium quarterfinal.

Morocco go out with their heads up, and a complaint

Coach Mohamed Ouahbi said his side “gave everything” and “tried everything,” and noted that this is a program that has now reached a World Cup semifinal and a quarterfinal in consecutive tournaments, hardly a crisis. He also flagged what he saw as a handball by Adrien Rabiot in the buildup to Mbappé’s goal, unreviewed and unpunished. Real grievance or a coach managing the story on his way out, Morocco’s run (Saibari’s hamstring and all) ends with more credit than most quarterfinal exits get.

A ban that will bite on Saturday

Away from Boston, FIFA handed England defender Jarell Quansah a two-match ban for his red card against Mexico, ruling him out of Saturday’s quarterfinal against Norway and a potential semifinal too. The USA’s Folarin Balogun got a one-match ban for a broadly similar red card, and England fans have noticed the gap.

Golden Boot: Mbappé leads on 8 goals (tiebreaker), level with Messi; Haaland on 7.

Check the bracket and see who’s left on the live table.

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