Morocco has not lost a soccer match in 34 consecutive games, and the best the sports internet could summon after their 3-0 dismantling of Canada was some variation of: can the Atlas Lions pull off another miracle against France?
That word, miracle, is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Morocco has now won three World Cup knockout matches between 2022 and now, a number no other African nation has come close to in history.
Azzedine Ounahi scored twice on Friday in Houston. The first came on a low right-footed shot from outside the box off an Achraf Hakimi free-kick, 50 minutes in, precise enough to find the bottom right corner. The second was a counterattacking finish in the 82nd, Brahim Diaz threading the assist. Soufiane Rahimi put it away in stoppage time. Canada’s coach Jesse Marsch said afterward, “We were the better team…They just have a quality in the final third.” That’s a generous reading of a 3-0 loss, but Marsch is right about one thing: Morocco’s quality in the final third is not accidental, and it is not new.
Canada’s improbable World Cup run was a real story at this tournament. So was Morocco ending it without breaking a sweat.
The framing problem traces back to 2022. Morocco was the charming underdog in Qatar. They beat Belgium, Spain, and Portugal, reached the semifinal, and lost to France 2-0 in a match that wasn’t as close as the scoreline suggested. Underdog stories are comfortable. They let the audience feel generous without updating any of their priors. So four years later, with Morocco sitting on a 34-game unbeaten run and a back-to-back quarterfinal spot (the first African nation to accomplish that), the media default has barely shifted. The frame is still 2022. The team has moved.
https://x.com/EnMaroc/status/2073551840117923881
I covered enough of this tournament’s biggest upsets to know what genuine surprise looks like. Morocco doesn’t look surprised. They look organized, ruthless, and incrementally better than they were four years ago. That’s what sustained excellence actually looks like, which is different from what makes a good story.
The counterargument is that France is genuinely elite. Sixteen goals in five matches. Five wins. Even without Aurélien Tchouaméni, they arrive at Gillette Stadium on July 9th as -175 moneyline favorites, -390 to advance outright. Those odds reflect real quality, and treating Morocco as a lock would be its own kind of error.
But there’s a difference between acknowledging France’s strength and writing Morocco’s preview as if the burden of proof is still on them. Morocco already passed the test. Repeatedly. The question for July 9th isn’t whether the Atlas Lions can shock anyone. It’s whether France can handle a team that hasn’t lost since August.
The prior needed updating a long time ago.
