In a meeting of two sides currently blessed by golden generations of talent, it was the Moroccans who shone.
For Canada, injured Alphonso Davies was helpless on the bench as Morocco neutralised Stephen Eustaquio’s dangerous passing and squeezed star striker Jonathan David out of the game.
Meanwhile, Morocco captain Achraf Hakimi, arguably the world’s best right back, was a constant menace both on the ball and in the Canadian players’ faces, while creative fulcrum Brahim Diaz claimed two assists. He now has four in World Cups – the most of any African player.
“The first half was very intense,” Morocco manager Mohamed Ouahbi told his post-match media conference.
“There were a few adjustments to be made at half-time. We were never safe from pressure.
“What matters is we didn’t change our identity, we didn’t change our game philosophy. There were lots of ideas being thrown around and we took the best one.
“We are playing the World Cup which means there will be difficult moments. What matters is when we are not at our best, we have to be resilient. We have to remember who we are playing for and what we are playing for.”
It was more than enough to take Morocco to a second successive men’s World Cup quarter-final, progressing through five matches as they did in Qatar.
Morocco have now won four World Cup knockout matches – two in 2022, two in 2026 – which is as many as all other African nations combined.
One more win, and they will have officially matched their showing at the 2022 World Cup, where they became the first African nation ever to reach the semi-finals.
So Morocco are contenders, although there remains a feeling they have not been tested to their full capabilities yet.
They impressed in drawing with Brazil in their opening game, before contrasting wins over Scotland and Haiti – the first a hard-fought slog following a goal inside two minutes, the latter a frenetic 4-2 against free-wheeling, already eliminated foes.
In the round of 32, they were the better team against Netherlands but needed a stoppage-time header to avoid elimination. Then against Canada they were eventually comfortable, but it was not a high-quality win to assuage doubters ahead of a possible meeting with France in the last eight.
