Morocco advances to quarter-finals after victory over Canada, set to face France who eliminated Paraguay

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Morocco became the first team to qualify for the quarter-finals of the 2026 World Cup in football, by defeating Canada, one of the three host nations, 3-0 on Saturday in Houston in the round of 16.

At NRG Stadium in front of 69,000 spectators, Morocco owed its victory to Azzedine Ounahi who scored a brace in the 50th and 82nd minutes, and substitute Sofiane Rahimi who added the third (90+8), in a match where Real Madrid star Ibrahim Diaz shone with two assists.

The Spanish Real Madrid player raised his tally to four in the current edition, becoming the player with the most assists by any African player in the history of the finals.

Morocco will play in the quarter-finals on Thursday in Boston against Paraguay or France, who meet later in Philadelphia. This is the second consecutive time Morocco has reached the quarter-finals in its seventh participation, after the last edition in Qatar where it finished fourth.

It is Morocco's third win in the current edition against two draws, and the eighth in 28 matches in the finals against 9 draws and 11 losses.

Ounahi said in the mixed zone: 'It doesn't matter that I scored a brace, what matters is that we won and we will continue our journey,' while midfielder Ayoub Bouaddi said: 'They caused us problems in the first half and were more organized, but we spoke with the coach during the break and improved.'

He added: 'I am proud of qualifying and we will do our utmost to continue the journey. We will rest and focus on the next match.'

Morocco had a poor first half, but returned in the second half and managed to score two goals from only six attempts in the match, one of which was in the first half.

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Morocco repeated its victory over Canada after having beaten them 2-1 in the final round of the group stage in the last edition on its way to its unprecedented achievement of reaching the semi-finals before being eliminated by France.

Morocco ended Canada's adventure, which achieved two unprecedented feats in its World Cup participations: its first win and reaching the knockout stages for the first time.

French national team books passage to quarter-finals at expense of Paraguay

On another front, the French national team managed to secure a hard-fought victory over Paraguay with a single goal scored by Kylian Mbappé from a penalty kick in the 70th minute of the match.

With this goal, Mbappé raised his tally to seven goals in the tournament, tying for the top of the scoring chart with Argentine Lionel Messi, and also narrowed the gap with the latter in the list of all-time World Cup scorers (20 vs 19).

With this French victory, 'Les Bleus' set up a quarter-final clash with the Atlas Lions next Thursday.

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