Captain Achraf Hakimi was among the scorers as a dominant Morocco outclassed the USA on Friday to reach the semi-finals of the Olympic men’s football tournament, winning their last-eight tie 4-0.
Morocco had the vast majority of a noisy and packed crowd at the Parc des Princes behind them and were simply too strong for the USA.
Soufiane Rahimi opened the scoring from the penalty spot before Ilias Akhomach and Hakimi added further goals in the second half, with another spot-kick, by Mehdi Maouhoub, wrapping up the win.
After topping their group ahead of Argentina, Morocco will face Spain in the semi-final on Monday in Marseille.
The sizeable Moroccan community in France has turned out in big numbers over the last week to back their team, who came to the Games after winning last year’s Under-23 Africa Cup of Nations.
They are a formidable side, captained by one of the world’s best full-backs in Hakimi and with two livewire wingers in Akhomach and Abde Ezzalzouli either side of the prolific Rahimi in attack.
The United States never really looked likely to recover once Rahimi converted a penalty just before the half-hour mark after he had been fouled in the area by Nathan Harriel.
Rahimi, who plays in the United Arab Emirates and is one of Morocco’s three overage players at the Olympics, is the tournament’s top scorer with five goals in four games.
Miles Robinson did miss a good chance for the Americans just before the hour, but Morocco doubled their lead on 63 minutes.
Ezzalzouli produced a great piece of play on the left flank before picking out his fellow former Barcelona youngster Akhomach to finish at the near post.
Hakimi, playing on his Paris Saint-Germain home ground, then ran through to make it 3-0 with 20 minutes of the game remaining.
Substitute Maouhoub added another penalty in stoppage time after Harriel had been penalised for handball following a VAR review.
Meanwhile, France’s grudge match with Argentina ended in ugly scenes after Jean-Philippe Mateta scored the only goal to put the hosts into the Olympic semi-finals on Friday with a 1-0 win, joining Spain, Morocco and Egypt.
Tensions spilled over at full-time in Bordeaux with rival players and staff clashing on the pitch and confrontations continuing down the tunnel.
Crystal Palace striker Mateta struck five minutes into the quarter-final, meeting Michael Olise’s corner with a superb near-post header.
That proved enough for the hosts, coached by Thierry Henry, to reach the last four, where they face Egypt.
Friday’s clash was the first meeting of the two nations since Argentina players were recorded singing racist chants about their French counterparts as they celebrated winning the Copa America in mid-July.
FIFA announced it would investigate the chants, which targeted France’s star striker Kylian Mbappe among others and included racist and homophobic insults.
The Argentina team were met with a hostile welcome, where the crowd loudly jeered their national anthem as the sides met for the first time since the 2022 World Cup final, which the South Americans won on penalties.
Henry said midfielder Enzo Millot, who had been substituted late on, was shown a red card after the final whistle.
“He wasn’t on the pitch. Maybe you get sent off because you get a second yellow card to stop someone running through on goal, not when you are on the bench. I am really not happy about that,” Henry told broadcaster France 3.
Giuliano Simeone and Julian Alvarez missed chances for Javier Mascherano’s Argentina, and the exit of the two-time gold medallists means the winner of men’s football gold will not come from Latin America for the first time since Cameroon triumphed in Sydney in 2000.
France could have won by a wider margin, but Olise had a late second goal disallowed for a foul in the build-up.
Ibrahim Adel was Egypt’s hero, scoring a late equaliser in normal time and then converting the winning penalty in the shoot-out, in which Paraguay’s Marcelo Perez was the only player to fail to score.
Earlier a brilliant brace by Barcelona’s Fermin Lopez helped fire Spain to a 3-0 win over Japan in Lyon.
Lopez, a member of Spain’s triumphant Euro 2024 squad, blasted in the opener from range in the 11th minute.
The Barcelona midfielder struck again on 73 minutes with another goal of the highest quality as he controlled a Sergio Gomez corner before volleying in from the edge of the box.
Captain Abel Ruiz wrapped up the win for Spain, Olympic champions in 1992 and silver medallists three years ago in Tokyo. Spain go through to a last-four clash in Marseille with Morocco, who outclassed the United States, winning 4-0 in Paris.
The Olympic men’s football final will take place at the Parc des Princes on August 9.
