Ouahbi backs Morocco's future after France ends World Cup run

France beat Morocco 2-0 in the World Cup quarter-finals at Boston Stadium in Foxborough, near Boston, and Mohamed Ouahbi used the defeat to underline how far his team has come. After Kylian Mbappé struck in the 60th minute and Ousmane Dembélé added a second in the 66th, the Morocco coach said his players “Lo intentaron todo” and insisted the campaign should not be abandoned after one hard night.

Ouahbi conceded that France were the better side and deserved to win, but he framed the result as another step in a longer build rather than an endpoint. He said Morocco must absorb the defeat, stay on the path they have started and keep working, arguing that the future of the Atlas Lions remains promising if the same standards are maintained. With the loss, Morocco exited at the quarter-final stage of a World Cup for only the second time in their history.

The margin mattered, but so did the backdrop. Morocco arrived in Foxborough with a young core and a federation that has tied this cycle to the 2030 World Cup, which Morocco will co-host. The team’s rise has already included a historic run at Qatar 2022, when Morocco became the first African side to reach a World Cup semi-final. More recently, the same program delivered another milestone: Morocco won the FIFA U-20 World Cup in Chile in 2025, beating Argentina 2-0 in the final to claim the country’s first title in that age group.

Before the quarter-final, Ouahbi said Ismael Saibari was the only confirmed injury absence, a small setback in a squad that has been built around continuity and internal competition. FIFA had already portrayed Morocco as more than a surprise by the time this rematch with France arrived, a team with enough pedigree to be treated as a real contender.

That was the tension inside Foxborough: Morocco left the tournament beaten, but not diminished in ambition. Ouahbi’s message was that the loss clarified the scale of the project, and that a generation that has already won in Chile and challenged the world’s best now has to turn promise into another deep run.