Any promoter would take that and smile, while the world might start three idle days chattering with the greatest anticipation. This after France passed the semifinal in the 2-0 defeat of Morocco, the darling of this World Cup, which means that Sunday will arrive and bring Lionel Messi, the 35-year-old Argentine star whose shirts appear on kids and grown men about Planet Earth, against Kylian Mbappé, the 23-year-old French star whose shirts began to appear on children and adults across planet Earth.
As a bonus, the match will include a number of other players of absurd abilities.
“Any team with Messi is a totally different proposition,” said 31-year-old French striker Antoine Griezmann, while any team with Mbappé is… a totally different proposition.
France – the beauty of its football often matching the beauty of its streets, parks, wine, art, architecture, countryside, coastline, language and other subjects – did something every other elite team considered impossible against Morocco in this World Cup: scored. He scored in the fifth minute and later in the 79th, with the former becoming the first dent Morocco has allowed in all tournaments except a missed own goal awarded to Canada, causing the first World Cup-wide deficit for the former African and first Arab Semifinalist.
“If I have one regret after this game,” said Walid Regragui, Morocco’s new and already talented coach, “it’s the start of the game; we conceded a goal very quickly and that gave France confidence and allowed them to be in good shape.
France took that lead to a milestone, becoming the first champions to make the difficult journey back to the World Cup final since Brazil in 1998, and only the fifth since this insane global habit began in the 1930s. becoming the first champion to repeat since the 1962 Brasileirão, when Pelé, Garrincha, Vavá, Zito and Amarildo were the one-word Brazilian names that caused joy in the crowd and hell in the defenses.
Who on earth could unlock Morocco’s Fort Knox from a defence, which they made so admirable in this event by playing their first five games and the start of the sixth without conceding a goal, unless you count the own goal that deflected the onslaught of a Moroccan boot right? Who could score in Morocco in front of their fans, who became so admirable in this event, who dominated the 68,294 at Al Bayt Stadium and who completed yet another exciting version of “Cherifian Anthem”, that national anthem constructed by a Moroccan author ( lyrics) and French military officer (music)?
France could. Of course France could, even if it had some help from fate, as if it required it.
First Nayef Aguerd, part of the four-man starting defense that lent so much strength to Morocco’s hard-won ride this tournament, couldn’t go because of a bit of the flu that’s been going on here (and also affecting some French players). Then Romain Saiss, the 32-year-old captain and defender, ran with a limp that screamed the persistence of the injury that ended his quarterfinals on a stretcher in the 57th minute.
Regragui replaced Saiss in the 21st minute – “such an important player for us”, he said – but a little carnival of things had happened by then.
France navigated this World Cup with considerable injuries of their own, and lacked two regular starters for various reasons on Wednesday night, but in that fifth minute they started to feel good again as they passed the ball from the left edge of the field towards close to the midfield, in the direction of Raphael Varane, a longtime defender. Varane played a fine pass to long-time performer Griezmann, who in one move swept past a desperate Jawad El Yamiq and continued down the right.
That looked threatening to any defence, and when Griezmann crossed towards Mbappé it looked more threatening to any defence. Several Moroccans surrounded Mbappé, causing a detour which he quickly darted to the left to chase another shot and another detour.
However, his mere presence only mattered all the time, because when that detour turned left and found defender Theo Hernández, Hernández found himself virtually alone there with Yassine Bounou, or Bono, the 31-year-old Moroccan goalkeeper and star of this event. Then Hernández, a 25-year-old defender who probably didn’t place many bets on scoring at bookmakers around the world, did something acrobatically good.
Presented with a ball that bounced once and bounced high, he got up and squirmed so that the left boot that ran parallel to the ground could propel the ball past Bono. When the ball went down and then went in and the French went to exult in the corner, two Moroccan players were confused in the goal as if the sight of an own goal seemed strange.
Morocco, to their credit on top of all the credit they’ve earned here, have handled this by playing like someone who felt like they belonged here. They managed a tremendous 25-yard strike in the ninth minute from Azzedine Ounahi, such a revelation at this World Cup that goalkeeper Hugo Lloris had to dive to the left to stop it. They received a bicycle kick in the 45th minute from El Yamiq that sailed towards the left post and sent the stadium into a frenzy that could have lasted until Sunday if he had scored. And they spent stretches of the second half, both early and late, creating impressive and even screaming chances that they failed to convert.
“Unfortunately, we were not clinical in the last third”, said Regragui, identifying in the match “the small details that help true champions to win”.
“Morocco impressed me tonight,” said Griezmann.
“It was not an easy victory”, said French coach Didier Deschamps, who has already won the World Cup as a player (1998) and as a coach (2018), “and we showed our quality, our experience and our team spirit. 🇧🇷
They did all of the above and held out, even when their defense had to put out small and large fires. They finally overcame the match’s continual back-and-forth in the 79th minute, finding something their skill compelled them to find. Mbappé played a large part in that too, with a headed zigzag past three defenders in the top left corner of the area, after which he leapt at the heel of a defender for Randal Kolo Muani, who had just come on as a substitute with just time enough to start sweating.
Kolo Muani, just 24 years old, hit the hand, and France would send an opponent who had become adult and difficult to dismiss. That opponent would go on to one last boom of appreciative applause, and the World Cup would move on to a Sunday for which any World Cup would be grateful.