Four years ago, Morocco shocked everyone by reaching the semifinals of the World Cup. To get there, the Atlas Lions played like a quintessential underdog. They defended with their lives and then capitalized on whatever counterattacking opportunities presented themselves during a given match.
It wasn’t the most entertaining brand of soccer, but it was effective. Morocco topped their group ahead of Croatia, Belgium, and Canada, and then they defeated Spain and Portugal before bowing out against France in the semifinals.
You’d think the Atlas Lions would just run that same recipe back for 2026, but the Royal Moroccan Football Federation made a gutsy call when they essentially strongarmed Walid Regragui into resigning from his post as head coach so that they could hire Mohamed Ouahbi, a more progressive manager, to take over the program for the World Cup.
Regragui led Morocco to the World Cup semifinals and the 2025 African Cup of Nations title, but the powers that be thought his pragmatic philosophy had run its course. You can only come out on the right side of a coin flip so many times in a row.
More importantly, the decision-makers believed that Morocco had enough talent to go toe to toe with the best teams in the world.
So far, they’ve been proven right. Morocco opened the tournament with a draw against Brazil, ousted the Netherlands and Canada in their first two knockout matches, earning themselves a shot at France — and revenge — in the quarterfinals on Thursday afternoon.
The only problem is that France is well equipped to handle what Morocco will throw at them at Gillette Stadium.
Under the guidance of Didier Deschamps, Les Bleus have turned into a juggernaut. Deschamps gets flak for being too conservative given the amount of talent at his disposal, but his philosophy is that if you take care of business on your own end, it means you only need a moment or two from your stars to be the difference.
And when you’ve got a lineup filled with game-breakers like Kylian Mbappe, Desire Doue, Ousmane Dembele, and Michael Olise, the chances are that you will get more than just one moment of magic over the course of 90 minutes.
As romantic as it will be to watch Morocco try to take down Goliath with style and flair, they’re playing right into France’s strengths.
Sweden, France’s opponent in the Round of 32, took a different approach. They threw caution to the wind and gave it a real go. It didn’t work. Les Bleus cruised to a 3-0 victory, and it could have been a lot worse. France took 25 shots, got 12 on target, and created seven big scoring chances against the Swedes.
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Morocco is a better team than Sweden, but they’re far from a force. The Atlas Lions got the job done in a 3-0 win over Canada in the Round of 16, but the box score shows that the North Africans really rode their luck in that contest. Canada doubled up Morocco on shot attempts (10-5) and had 24 more touches in the opponent’s 18-yard box. With some better finishing, we could have been talking about the Canadians taking on France instead of the Moroccans.
If Canada were able to make inroads against the Moroccan defense, France should relish the chance to get at the Atlas Lions on Thursday.
The prices on Les Bleus are steep, but there is plenty of value by isolating the matchup between France’s clinical attack against Morocco’s defense, which will have a lot of work to do given how many players Ouahbi likes to send forward.
France has scored at least three goals in all but one match at this World Cup, and they’re +265 to hit that mark on Thursday.
The Play: France over 2.5 goals (+265, FanDuel)
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Michael Leboff is a long-suffering Islanders fan, but a long-profiting sports bettor with 10 years of experience in the gambling industry. He loves using game theory to help punters win bracket pools, find long shots, and learn how to beat the market in mainstream and niche sports.
