At 3 a.m. Beijing time on December 15, the 2022 Qatar World Cup will play its second semi-final matchup, with defending champion France facing the challenge of the big dark horse Morocco. Can the trident of Kylian Mbappe, Olivier Giroud and Griezmann break through the Atlas Lions pool, which has conceded only one own goal in their previous five games and is extremely well defended? Sharp spear PK strong shield, the winner competed with Argentina at 23:00 on December 18; The loser will play the third and fourth place finals with Croatia at 23:00 on December 17.
【Dec 15 03:00 Semifinals France VS Morocco】
Head-to-head record: France are unbeaten in 3 wins and 2 draws in the previous 5 meetings between the two sides, scoring 12 goals and conceding 6; The most recent meeting was a friendly at the Stade de France in November 20007, when France dropped a set in the opening eight minutes and then reversed the lead thanks to goals from Govu and Nasri, only to concede another goal in the 84th minute to draw 2-2 with Morocco.
The French team conceded goals "steadily" on a field and still had confidence to reach the final four times
As the defending champions, France won 2-1 in the quarter-final against the fourth-placed England team in the last quarter, and kept their hopes of reaching a third World Cup title. Deschamps' side now only need two more wins to become the first team to win the World Cup back-to-back after Brazil in 1962. But the first thing they have to do is to win the biggest dark horse of the tournament, Morocco, and the complex relationship between the two countries makes this game very topical.
France are the only team in the Final Four who have not kept a clean sheet in their first five games, and they have consistently maintained a rhythm of conceding one goal per game. However, thanks to the stable attacking triangle of Griezmann Mbappe Giroud in midfield, the Gallic Roosters can still advance to the World Cup semi-finals for the seventh time. A positive hint for France is that after finishing in the semi-finals on the first three occasions, they won all three semi-finals in 1998, 2006 and 2018, despite reaching the final on the shoulders of their "European brothers".
In the final round of the group stage, France's 1-0 defeat to Tunisia in the big rotation was a wake-up call to coach Deschamps that African teams are not left to chance. In fact, France has no advantage in 6 World Cup matches against teams from Africa with 3 wins and 3 losses, and the wins and losses are alternate. At the World Cup, no team has ever lost to two different African teams in a single tournament, and France need to avoid setting an inglorious record.
Morocco is not afraid of European teams, Atlas Lions have "French gang"
Morocco's performance in this World Cup has been absolutely impressive, with three wins and two draws in five games so far, and it is worth mentioning that four of these five games have been against European teams, drawing first with the previous runners-up Croatia, beating the previous runners-up Belgium 2-0 in the second match, and beating former world champions Spain in the knockout stage, and Portugal by one goal in the last round.
It is worth mentioning that Morocco's overall record in the World Cup finals is 5 wins, 7 draws and 9 defeats, of which 4 wins and 7 draws came against European teams (according to FIFA practice, penalty shootouts are recorded as draws in regular time). This time, they will challenge defending champions France. Morocco conceded only one goal in their first five games before facing France, and the one conceded was an own goal against Canada. In other words, Morocco's goal has not yet been directly breached by the opponent.
As many as 14 of the 26 players in the Moroccan squad were born abroad, including captain Saïs and striker Buffal, and coach Regrage, who was also born in France, and was a club teammate with Giroud during his time at Grenoble. Five of the current squad, Ashraf Hakimi, Unahi, Buffal, Delhi and Abu Heral, are also currently playing in the French league.
Trident who fired this time Deschamps hit the 14th victory of the World Cup
Although Benzema was injured and sadly absent before the start of this World Cup, France's attacking firepower was not affected. Mbappe has five goals and two assists in five games and currently leads the top scorers; Olivier Giroud currently tops France's all-time top scorer list with four goals in four games, while Griezmann provides three assists in five games and is tied with Harry Kane and Bruno Fernandes, both of whom have said goodbye to the World Cup.
It can be said that the ferocity of France's attacking trident firepower is the key to whether they can reach the final for two consecutive times, knowing that only four teams have double-digit goals before the semi-finals, but in addition to France (11 goals), England (13), Portugal (12) and the Netherlands (10) have all been eliminated.
Among them, Griezmann is particularly worth mentioning, he has scored 3 goals and 5 assists in the last 8 World Cup starts, and directly participated in 8 goals, and 7 of the 8 goals he participated in were completed in the knockout stage. As for Giroud, if he can maintain the scoring momentum, he will become the oldest player to score 5 goals in a single World Cup; And although Mbappe only contributed emojis in the quarterfinals, he won all 10 of his 10 starts in the World Cup finals, and the "talisman" role is obvious.
In addition, manager Deschamps will coach the team in the World Cup finals for the 18th time, after a record of 13 wins, 2 draws and 2 defeats, and if he wins, he will equal the 14-win Scolari and become the second most won coach in World Cup history, behind legendary German coach Helmut Schöne (25-16). Before the semi-finals, French Football Federation president Le Graet sent a positive signal that he hoped to renew Deschamps' contract, saying that the final decision was controlled by Deschamps.
The Moroccan boss remains unbeaten Ennesili scored another goal
French-born Moroccan coach Regragi took charge of the team for less than four months, leading the team to an unbeaten record of 5 wins and 3 draws in 8 games, and conceded only one goal during this period, again in the World Cup group stage against Canada. Regraj is not only the first African coach to lead an African team to the quarter-finals and semi-finals, but now the most successful, with Morocco unbeaten in three wins and three draws in their last six World Cup matches, already the longest unbeaten run in World Cup history.
Ennesiri, who scored the winning goal against Portugal in the quarter-finals, has already scored three goals in the World Cup finals, one goal in 2018 and two goals in five games in 2022, and is expected to become the fourth African player to score three or more goals in a single World Cup, after Cameroon's Uncle Mila in 1990, Bubba Diop in Senegal in 2002 (3) and Ghana's Gian in 2010 (3).
Before the competition, the coaches of both sides "held each other commercially" with the same goal and led the team to advance to the final final
In the pre-match press conference, Deschamps brought goalkeeper Lowry to attend. Deschamps said: "Morocco has done a very good defensive job and at this stage their defensive quality has not deteriorated in the slightest, and they are definitely the best defensive team of the tournament. But they're not just good defensively — if they're just a defensive team, they won't make it to the semifinals. Their playmaker is also very good, which ensures that they have the ability to make good players defend, on the basis of good defense, to inflict damage on opponents. Our goal is to create difficulties for them, and I believe we will find a solution. ”
Lowry said: "Morocco has a solid defensive line and is very good at counter-attacking, and Hakim Ziyech is a key player in their team. We salute Morocco for what they have achieved, but now they are our opponents and we need to make sure we are patient in the game and at the same time come out at the right time to break their defence as soon as possible, hoping that France will overcome their opponents and advance to the final. ”
Morocco coach Regraj praised Deschamps, "In this World Cup, we keep pushing forward, although each further game is getting more and more difficult. In the semi-finals, we are going to face the defending champions, who have the best coaches and the team, but we have to stick to our style of play and keep moving the way we were before, we want to surprise again and we will try to reach the final. I have dual citizenship of Morocco and France. It's an honour for me to play against France, but it's only about football. Whether it's France or Brazil, the only thing I want is to lead the team to the next round, I just want to beat the best team in the world. (Tauranga)
Acknowledgements: Mengniu, the official sponsor of the FIFA World Cup worldwide, is strong in every part of the nutrition world