Mbappé’s Magic & Morocco’s Quarterfinal Heartbreak! 🇫🇷🇲🇦 | World Cup Daily #39

[00:00:00] Ousmane Dembele said, we are very happy. We were really focused on this match. This is my third World Cup semi-final with the French team. It's pure joy, pure pleasure. We're going to stay focused on what's coming next. Because two or three minutes before my goal, Kylian told me to stay central. He made a great run, opened up the path for me and I really wanted to get this short in target and see if it could go in. I am happy and so are we, Dembele, so are we.

[00:00:34] Welcome back, football friends. My name is John and I'll be your host of today's World Cup Daily FUT IN REVIEW episode. I think it's 39 already, something like that. I'm so lost in this. Anyways, I will not be talking alone about this great match between Morocco and France. I am joined once again this week, making a regular appearance now. It's Mr. Blue. Welcome back, Ray. Thanks for having me back on. I'm pretty sure the Vietnamese housewives will be happy to see me as well.

[00:01:04] I can only hope so. I can only hope so because they're good for numbers for us. Yeah. Apparently, you came back on the show just a little bit. You came back on the show and apparently we've become number one podcast in Vietnam. Yeah, strange. I don't understand why, but I think it's a joke that will keep going for a while. Yeah. And please, if you're Vietnam and listen to the show, keep listening because we definitely enjoy this. And maybe if you keep it on, we'll see if we can organize an event in Vietnam and send Graham to Europe.

[00:01:34] Yeah, I'll happily go. Yeah, of course. I'd go as well. And now I see images of all those housewives standing in front of a plane waving. If you arrive. But hey, let's not go there, Graham. Show me. No. We are in quarterfinals. We are playing some good matches now. We're not playing ourselves, but we are getting the best of the best now. From the eight teams left, we have six European teams in here. And yesterday we had France play Morocco.

[00:02:03] Great. I could summarize this match in 30 seconds, but I can probably do it in five. You go, challenge accepted. France is just too good for everyone else. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. What we saw here was that a strength of like a display of power. Yep. Yeah. So this match started. Of course, Morocco had some injured player. I talked in depth about Halal being the weak spot in the Moroccan defense line, and I could not see them having any chance what he played.

[00:02:31] I said, unfortunately for him, I don't mean it that bad that I said it, but I think it's definitely the weak spot of the team, and I don't see how he can keep up with it. Well, Graham, you didn't need to keep up with it, because I wasn't the only one taking that conclusion. He didn't play. Yeah, he was dropped. There was a few players dropped that I thought were strange as well. Halal was pretty obvious being poor, but Riyadh and Amarbat being dropped as well thought was a bit strange, given that they'd already lost Sabawi. Yeah.

[00:02:59] You said you could expect this to be a very open match? Yeah, just the way Morocco have played the tournament so far, how they played in the AFCON, they're generally a very attacking team, strong. Like, Hakimi normally is bombing up the wing. Like, me and Chris spoke about in another podcast, very similarly. I was watching Tav as a right-back at the back post, looking for tap-ins and headers. So, I was expecting them to still be very offensive, like, try and hit France in the break,

[00:03:28] and they went the polar opposite there. They sat deep and really didn't offer much. Do you think they chose to sit deep, or did they were just forced to stay deep? I think they chose to at the start. I think they were hoping to sit a bit more back than they normally would and still use that speed of, like, Hakimi, and I can never remember his name, the Real Betis left winger. Obviously, Diaz is very talented,

[00:03:57] so when he's got guys that can run past the defence, he can find them with a great pass. So, I think they were hoping to sit a bit deep and really counter them, but then the way that France just swallowed them up in their own half and just kept them pinned back, I don't think they really had much choice, given the way the game went. I think you were talking about Salah, Aydin? Maybe? No, I think his name's Elf something. No. Elkanus.

[00:04:26] That's the one, Elkanus. Yes. He played sort of left midfield yesterday. That's where he normally plays for Betis as well, and I thought, just with his pace, if he's bombing on, trying to press on Koundé, and then if you've got Hakimi, yeah, Hakimi, but I'm trying to press on and press Lucas Dini, that somebody like Diaz could maybe throw a ball between the centre-back and the right-back or the centre-back and the left-back and find them. But there's just no runs, no nothing, to be honest.

[00:04:56] Yeah, just saying they had one shot at goal the whole match, Morocco. I think this is best explained as a match where people hoped Morocco could offer some resistance here, opposition, but in the end, France just started off, like, in the fifth minute, they had the first chance already. They just started off with a bang, and, like, there's nothing to win from here. I spoke to some Moroccan friends for me after the match, and they were all like, eh, I said, are you unhappy? Like, wow, we're disappointed,

[00:05:25] but there's no playing this. Like, we can live with this. This is... And to be fair, they said as well, if the Dutch would play this team, it would be the same result because there's just no playing against this. They didn't have too much possession because I do think France played pretty risky. They're depending on the top four a lot, right? But just some random stats, just when I want to show you how much... Of course, they won 2-0. I didn't even know if I mentioned it, yeah. Like, the possession is almost 46 versus 46 with 8% in contest.

[00:05:53] So pretty much similar. But the difference is that France took 22 shots on goal. From those 22, 8 were on target versus 1 on target from Morocco. 10 shots off target versus 3 shots off target from Morocco. 13 shots inside the penalty area versus 1 shot inside the penalty area. And even 9 shots outside the penalty area versus the remaining 4 shots.

[00:06:23] Basically, they didn't even give much... They didn't give anything away until late in the 84th minute the first shot on target was something like that. Yeah, it was pretty late in the game, so the contest was all but done at that point. Yeah. I think this was a masterclass of football. Like, Morocco, just putting out it, Morocco has definitely arrived as a top football nation. They've shown that for years now, and we can definitely say they've arrived.

[00:06:52] But this France team is just insane to watch. I've called it football porn before. You can call it whatever you like, but this is... They... Chris said in the first half, it feels like a playing exhibition match. Like, they're doing with them that should take it seriously. It could already be like 4-0 in half time. And that's why it's holding the break in a little bit as well. Yeah, Chris said it was like watching the Globetroppers,

[00:07:21] the basketball team. To be honest, it was right. It was like this all-star team that were just doing what they wanted when they wanted, how they wanted against Morocco that just looked like wee boys lost just trying to hope that the big bully just took it easier than one of them a bit. So, yeah, the first half, it's just... The whole game was just so easy for us. But France, I don't even think they really went up the gears at all.

[00:07:52] No, it definitely showed there was a massive, massive strength difference there. And we have another one of those controversial penalties we should discuss. And maybe we should discuss penalties in general for a second there, Graeme. Because they got a deserving penalty. One of the famous Mbappe special penalties where he just dribbles in the box, takes one touch on the last minute, and you can't really evade him, and it's a penalty for you. Clear penalty, no? For me, yeah.

[00:08:20] I know some people don't like it, but I don't know about the rest of the world, but in Britain here, we're taught, in the box, don't go to ground. Because if you go to ground, it's always going to be a penalty 99% of the time. So, he went down, I don't... From the angles that we got, I didn't see any clear evidence that he touched the ball before touching Mbappe. It's just one of the things where it's just a penalty for me. Yeah,

[00:08:50] so Mbappe gets a lot of these penalties where he dribbles into the box, changes direction in the last minute. Whenever the player starts to step in, he touches to the side, and then it's always, you want to hit the player, right? He's just that fast. Then again, you can't give him much space either. So, you're damned if you do, damned if you don't in this situation. A deserved penalty. But, he went up against Bounou, and Bounou has at that stage of his career,

[00:09:18] from the eight penalties he conceded in the World Cup, seven did not go in. And we see Mbappe doing the stutter and miss once again. Bounou now has a record of nine penalties. I should say, I should different date. I said it's wrong, but he has now a record of nine penalties conceded on the World Cup stage where he saved seven of them. That's an insane stat.

[00:09:48] Incredible stat. Because, obviously, everybody knows penalties generally favour the attacker more than they favour the goalkeeper. So, it's been interesting how they've all changed their tactics slightly. It's like, they've been, obviously, they are coached and the goalkeeper coaches and analysts will go and watch things and look at things. like, but it's really interesting how they've changed tactic where normally they would dive a bit early. They're really waiting to the last minute

[00:10:17] to try and cancel out that. Each record's impressive. I get why the stutter was in fashion or whatever, but for me, it's probably as a da, a football da, short penalty, short run-ups and stutters just don't do it for me. Get a good run-up, pick a spot, hammer it in, just leave it to no flip, doubt, these

[00:10:47] stupid things. It could have cost them, but thankfully it didn't, but at some point somebody's really going to get a painful exit because the only chance I had was a better end somebody decided to try and be fancy with it. So hopefully this is the end of the stutter. Yeah, I just want to put some emphasis on some penalties here for a second. Why do we do the stutter? Why do we? I'm never doing that, but why do people use the stutter? Basically, it is a higher chance

[00:11:17] of actually netting your penalty into a goal. So what happens if he stutter, the goalkeeper might move early. If he moves earlier than you touch the ball, you got a free chance at goal. You shoot it to the other side. Where, and if you miss most of the time and Kane's penalty showed it at the start of this World Cup, you can just say, hey, the goalkeeper moved too early from his line and you can do a takeover. Right? And then you're already much in the advantage because the goalkeeper is out of the focus, et cetera, et cetera. So you get two chances

[00:11:46] to score a penalty if you do a stutter right and the goalkeeper takes a corner. But goalkeepers during this World Cup have said, you know what? We are not going to gamble into a corner because that's what they usually do. They know which is the preferred corner and they dive to that corner and else you can't make it, right? But because they do the stutter runs, if you don't move, you don't have a free corner to pick as a striker and you hit a softer ball than you would normally do with a normal run-up. Therefore, the goalkeepers

[00:12:16] are able to react in time and actually stop it. And it's been three out of three lately so far. Three stutters, three misses, including Messi and Mbappe. And that's why you said it could be the end of the stutter. The only thing I don't get is why people, why they stutter during a penalty shootout because you can't really get much do-overs there because refs are a little bit more lenient there. But I think that is why it's just a numbers game, why stutters are introduced because you often get a second chance if you do miss it. If you hit the goal, nobody will blame

[00:12:45] the goalkeeper for moving first. If you don't hit the goal, you can always go back and say, hey ref, look, he moved early and he can try again. You are very much correct in saying if you take a normal run-up and you hit it fast and the goalkeeper does not pick a corner prior to that, there's just no stopping it anyways. And we've spoken about defenders this season as well of this World Cup taking the penalty series. I've been looking into some statistics and currently the stutter run-ups have a higher percentage of going in

[00:13:15] so far. But it's slow, it's vastly degreasing with the last three misses. But also you said defenders can't make shoot penalties, right Graham? Yeah, there's a few that have been experts, but for the main, it generally just seems like if centre-back hits a penalty, it's going to be missed or skives. I took into some statistics. So I went to Opta and get some official statistics for World Cup and Euros shootouts

[00:13:45] where they split it up. So if you look at all players taking a penalty during World Cup and Euro, 72% goes in. Right? Yep. But if you're a defender, only 68% goes in. If you're a midfielder, 71.5% comes in. So about the average. If you're forward, you get a 75% chance of scoring. So that's over Euros and World Cup where defenders definitely rate lower. But this is not including stutters. This doesn't make a deviation between stutters yet.

[00:14:16] Then we have the World Cup situation. And here the difference is much bigger. So in World Cups, more penalties get saved than regularly. They don't know why, but it could be the fact that it is a bigger stage for most players. So 68.6% gets scores. 68.6% goes in. Defenders only score 62% of all their penalties on World Cups. While attackers scored almost

[00:14:45] 74% penalties. So yes, this time Muppet took and didn't score. The funny status though, if you look at year only, there's no deviations between defenders and strikers and midfielders, actually defenders are slightly higher to score penalties in Euros than everyone else. So the Euros is a little bit different, probably because the stage is low or the general quality might be higher over the board, so to speak. But you were correct.

[00:15:15] Defenders do miss penalties more often. And so far, I do think we are correct in seeing stutters are usually a higher rate of scoring penalties. But it looks like the goalkeepers found it out how to stop it and that's by not gambling, not taking the corner, just stay still and just move whenever they tap the ball because it's not more than a tap by now. And so far, it's been working. So it's an interesting thing going on in football, I think.

[00:15:49] I presume either the stutters will be perfected again or we'll move on to whatever's the next fad for penalties. Yeah, I just wish they they just stopped with all you can't do a stutter. If you start down during a walk, it's a free kick for the goalkeeper or whatever. And then we're all done with it. But I do like sort of the mind tactics here. But Mbappe missed or I should say actually in this situation, Bono took it once again. But Mbappe

[00:16:18] made good for that, didn't he? Yeah, certainly did. What a worldly goal. He didn't even get much space or any space at all. Hit it in the inside of the foot, curled it in, unstoppable ball, just pure, pure class. He said like Messi did it this week, scoring after missing a penalty and Mbappe is like, hold my wine, let me see it do it again. Yeah, but that's where the best do it, isn't it? They shrug off whatever previous failure it was and step up

[00:16:48] when it's really needed. So, it was a class goal that the build-up was brilliant, the finish was just perfect. So, it was needed though, they needed that sort of brilliant moment, colour moment that just broke the deadlock, knocked Morocco's defensive confidence and that was it. Pretty much the game was done and dusted at that point for me. I thought there would maybe have been a few more goals after it but Morocco did seem

[00:17:17] to hold in a little bit better than I thought they would. Do you think France was ever in doubt of not scoring that goal? Because they didn't seem anxious at all to be fair when it didn't go in yet. No, I think they were quite confident that it would come at some point. The way they were just moving the ball about passing, the fact that Morocco couldn't really get out the half at all. I think it was just a case of when rather than if. So I think the pennant way

[00:17:47] everybody thought this is an easy pennant way then from here we'll kick on. Unfortunately Bono was better and saved but it was just a case of when it came and sometimes you need that real magic. Sometimes you need a bit of luck and it could just be a scuff shot but it was a moment of magic and that was it pretty much. Yeah, moment of magic six minutes later as well when then Bele showed that he can do that as well. He had a really quiet game for me considering he's the Ballon d'Or

[00:18:16] winner, the two times Champions Link winner. I felt that he was a little bit outshadowed by his teammate Dewey, Alise and Mbappe. But that's a good finish nonetheless. You can't take it that away from him. Yeah, and we got a highlight Odise with Zoko Keta also. Yeah, that was phenomenal. It does really get much replay for me in Britain. I don't know about anybody else around the world, but in Britain, we've maybe got maybe one replay of it. Same. And I was like, what?

[00:18:46] This is magical. Yeah, like, obviously, NES, there was one of the best at it, but generally he'd done it where he had more space and it was maybe one person on him. What was a three, four around Deleesey? the space was minimal and it was just the perfect example of when to use it and how to use it. It's absolutely bamboozled them. Yeah, absolutely amazing game. All you say is just fantastic to watch. I do think Belgium will lose tonight. We've said it before,

[00:19:16] I don't think they'll have much options. But that semi-final France versus Spain. Already getting goosebumps thinking about it. Great. Again, like most keepers, Bono is an honourable mention. Unfortunately, they lost. So, that takes that away from him.

[00:19:46] I think Khaleesi is a good honourable mention as well. Obviously, Laker Coeta was phenomenal, his touches and his ability and skill and everything. I think Mbappé just shades up with his goal and everything. So, I agree with Mbappé. Baller of the day and Mbappé. What about the bottler of the day? Do you think we added in the notes and your advice and everyone was like, yeah, it should be Morocco. Is there anything you can blame them, though? Are they really bottlers?

[00:20:20] I think, if you're going to say anything, the fact that they didn't really have a go. I know I said at the start, it's a 50-50 thing. did they really have a chance? Because France were just so impressive and so dominant. they were just going to They didn't play their natural game. They tried to play something different than they have all

[00:20:50] World Cup, something that they tried different from AFCON and the friendly. so I think they did bottle it to a degree where they just changed everything in the hope of something happening and it didn't work. Yeah, I think I actually agree with you because the Netherlands did the same against Morocco and it just doesn't work. Not on tournament stage. So I agree, that's called Morocco the bottles of the day because of their dramatically tactical changes. And the drama of the day, we could say, Mbappe kept clean,

[00:21:20] scored a goal and then got substituted off just to make sure he can't get Messi's record just yet. But I think the fight for the golden boot is still on, right? I think that might be the drama. Yeah, obviously he took a nasty knock so I don't think it was any conspiracy theories or anything like that. I think the France were just staying safe. Yeah, the drama is hitting up with the golden boot. That's him tied on eight with Messi. Obviously Messi has the advantage of having

[00:21:49] the game against Switzerland coming up. Obviously Mbappi's now one game ahead of him. It is heating up. Obviously Haaland's sitting behind him. Harry Kane's not far behind. The drama is there. I think most of them will say themselves they'd rather win the golden boot than getting the golden boot. It is heating up. The overall general record of who's the top goal scorer in the whole cup could hinge on this tournament as well.

[00:22:20] Yeah. It's going to be interesting to watch. We'll see. We have still time. Also Mbappi said after the match he's fine. He got the nasty tackling by the way. He said I just got a nail on my foot. I didn't want to risk anything. Better to just sop off because I feel it a little bit. Should be fine. Yeah. Perfect. Obviously you've got a final against Spain. Possibly a final against Argentina or England. Maybe Norway. If you're turning them up like I said Morocco didn't really do much attacking. There's no point to gamble that.

[00:22:50] Take them off. Highs them up. Press them up and go again. Plus they got pretty good players to sub them in anyways. You've got enough talent on the bench. Give them a run out as well. Keep them fresh. Keep them and match sharpness so it worked out perfect for them. Do you think this French team will blow up internally like we might have predicted at the

[00:23:39] tournament and I've said it in other pods that they would play as more individuals wanting to have the limelight on themselves given it's Mbappe we all know the names dictator Mbappe at least he's the golden boy at Bayern and they were golden boys at PSG I thought it would be a team in a tournament where they all wanted to limelight themselves and they would all try and one up

[00:24:09] each other to the team where I thought the way Portugal would have played is the way France is actually playing I thought they would all mesh well and do really well where they didn't France themselves they're playing as a team it's all for each other they're all making decoy runs for each other they're all laying off each other I can't see how it implodes I know Cherki has been a little bit outspoken and he was a

[00:24:39] drama queen especially given that Duchamp had just come back from his mum passing away they took a day or two out of the camp to go and deal with that and came back I can't see them losing it now I think they'll do it for Duchamp this is his last tournament he's leaving the French job after this he's just lost his mum so let's do it for that I can't see how it implodes I think it's going to take a

[00:25:27] 4 to 10 being clear that Belgium continues tonight versus Spain 2 yeah I'd say 2 or 1 yeah it's not 1 maybe even there's no chance I think yeah the

[00:25:59] so I really don't see Belgium having much of a chance to be honest we'll let you know tomorrow that when ended up being because we will return tomorrow after the seeing Spain versus Belgium tonight thank you all for listening if you like it of course drop us a 5 star review everywhere you can it helps us tremendously check us foodonreview.com and if you want to buy us a cup of