Morocco eye historic World Cup final ticket

FIFA World Cup holders France are back in the semi-finals to face Morocco, the first-ever African team to reach this stage of the competition.

While France’ Les Bleus are bidding to become the first side to retain football’s most prized trophy since Brazil 60 years ago at Chile ‘62, the Atlas Lions could make further history by becoming the first team from outside Europe and South America to reach the final.

The defending champions are unbeaten in their five previous matches against Morocco (Won 3; Drew 2) – all in friendlies or mini-tournaments.

The most recent encounter was a 2-2 draw at the Stade de France in November 2007.

France have competed in six previous FIFA World Cup semi-finals, losing the first three – to Brazil in 1958 (2-5) and West Germany in both 1982 (3-3, 4-5 pens) and 1986 (0-2) – but winning the three most recent – against Croatia in 1998 (2-1), Portugal in 2006 (1-0) and Belgium in 2018 (1-0).