FIFA World Cup 2026 LIVE scores, Day 28: France vs Morocco Quarter-final results, highlights, latest news; ‘Deal with it’: French coach not worried by all-Argentinian ref team

France and Mbappé have finally broken the deadlock and taken a 1-0 lead.

Mbappé has been far from his best in this match and only minutes earlier blasted a much easier chance over the crossbar and into the stands.

But this time, from a standing start just inside the box, he somehow curls one into the top corner.

“Simply irrepressible. He insists on his moments, 20 World Cup goals for Kylian Mbappé,” Peter Drury said in commentary on SBS.

Replays from ground-level showed the ball started its journey outside the far post and curled to just sneak inside the upright. It’s a beautiful kick.

“You just can’t keep him down, can you? Dreadful penalty, hasn’t had much to do, this is only really half a chance,” Alan Smith added.

And with that, he does now draw level with Lionel Messi in the race for the golden boot.

And now the Moroccan’s will start to fight even harder. Moments after the restart, Mbappé is heavily fouled, and the Moroccan defender earns a yellow card.

Well that’s half-time in Boston where the score remains nil-all after that shocking penalty.

I still can’t wrap my head around quite how bad it was, although at least the keeper had to make the save.

France has dominated possession, and Morocco have had flashes. They will be more than happy to go into the break without having conceded.

All it takes is one successful counter-attack and all of a sudden, they could find themselves through.

What on earth was that?! Kylian Mbappé just blew a golden chance to put France 1-0 up and draw level with Lionel Messi in the race for the Golden Boot.

Mbappé was brought down inside the box, and the referee had no hesitation blowing a penalty. There was a delay while VAR double-checked the call, before the penalty was confirmed.

But the penalty itself was a shocker, and I genuinely reckon I could have done a better job. The French superstar did that little stutter on his run-up and basically just rolled it along the ground for an easy save.

“It was limp,” commentator Peter Drury quipped on SBS.

“That was probably one of the poorest penalties he’s ever taken,” Alan Smith added.

“The little stutter hasn’t served a lot of people all that well – it didn’t serve France’s finest particularly well here.

“Not in the corner, no power, it’s weak … certainly a let-off for Morocco.”

Gee whiz France have dominated the start of this match, and it took only three minutes for the first serious shot of the match.

No surprises for who it came from. From just inside the box Kylian Mbappe’s shot was well-saved by Moroccan ’keeper Yassine Bounou.

Les Bleus have also had a couple of other good looks too, but that was the best of them.

Morocco have had a couple of chances too, but their best attacking opportunity – from a set-piece deep inside French territory – amounted to nothing because the delivery was sent to the moon.

The atmosphere in the stadium sounds spectacular, and the images on TV suggest there are more red shirts in the stands than blue – although France are playing in their alternate cream strip because apparently dark blue and red are too similar.

Actually, I can’t tell if it’s cream. It might be bone, or off-white. In the shade, it looks ivory.

US skipper Christian Pulisic had an injury-riddled world cup, and as it turns out, he copped another one in the USA’s loss to Belgium.

The US Soccer Association on Friday morning confirmed he suffered a microfracture and bone bruise in the second half, and is expected to be out of action for several weeks.

Pulisic dominated the first half of the USA’s 4-1 win over Paraguay in their first group stage match, but came off at half-time having aggravated a calf injury. He didn’t play against the Socceroos and only came on as a sub against Türkiye.

He played against Bosnia and Herzegovina in the round-of-32 clash, but was never really dangerous.

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