The cards hailed
Saw after a weak first half where the yellow cards hailed.
But thanks to Azzedine Ounahi’s brilliance, Morocco are through to the quarter-finals after 3-0 against Canada.
Morocco looked sprained after 45 minutes.
The 2022 World Cup four entered the field in Houston as favorites against Canada. But most things went wrong for the Moroccans in the first half.
Ismael Saibari was injured and replaced and they barely managed to create anything.
In TV4’s studio, the team was seen.
– Morocco is shaken and Canada is totally screwed, says expert Hasse Backe.
Double up
But in the second half it was different and five minutes after the break the first goal came.
Instead of sending the free kick into the box, Achraf Hakimi passed diagonally back to Azzedine Ounahi who made it 1-0 in what was basically the team’s first hot chance of the game.
In the 82nd minute it was time again.
This time Morocco quickly countered and Brahim Diaz got the ball with him in the penalty area. He outwitted the defenders and played Azzedine Ounahi who splashed the ball onto the crossbar for his second goal of the evening.
Morocco eventually won 3–0 after Soufiane Rahimi punctured the match in extra time.
– We were much better in the first and also at the beginning of the second. There was a sequence where they scored 1-0 but otherwise the match was ours, says Canada’s national team captain Jesse Marsch in TV4’s broadcast.
Now the quarter-final awaits on Thursday 22.00, Swedish time, against the winner between France and Paraguay.
Warning party
In addition to Ounahi, the main referee Michael Oliver was also one of the foreground figures.
The 2026 edition of the FIFA World Cup has been a relatively benign one. Until the round of 16 in Houston, that is.
The British judge had patience with the shorter model and it showed. In the first half, he handed out a whopping six yellow cards – more than have been handed out in a whole match so far in the World Cup.
In total there were eight yellow cards, four for each team.
