BBC News, Arabic Go to content Main Watch Listen Sections Main News Economy Health and Science Culture and Arts World Cup 2026 Investigations News Economy Health and Science Culture and Arts World Cup 2026 Investigations Morocco advances to the quarter-finals after victory over Canada, setting up a clash with France, which eliminated Paraguay Source image, Getty Images
Morocco becomes the first team to qualify for the quarter-finals of the 2026 World Cup in football by beating Canada, one of the three host nations, by three clean goals on Saturday in Houston in the Round of 16.
At the NRG Stadium and in front of 69,000 spectators, Morocco owes its victory to Azzedine Ounahi, who scored twice in the 50th and 82nd minutes, and substitute Sofiane Rahimi who added the third (90+8), in a match where Real Madrid star Ibrahim Dias excelled with two assists.
The Real Madrid player raised his tally to four in the current edition, becoming the player with the most assists for any African player in World Cup history.
Morocco will play in the quarter-finals on Thursday in Boston against Paraguay or France, who will meet later in Philadelphia. This is the second consecutive time that Morocco has reached the quarter-finals in its seventh appearance, after finishing fourth in the last edition in Qatar.
This is Morocco's third win in the current edition, with two draws, and the eighth in 28 matches in the finals, compared to 9 draws and 11 losses.
Ounahi said in the mixed zone: "It doesn't matter if I scored twice, but what matters is that we won and will continue our journey," while midfielder Ayoub Bouadi said: "They created problems for us in the first half and were more organized, but we talked to the coach during the break and improved."
He added, "I am proud of the qualification and we will do our best to continue our journey, and we will rest and think about the next match."
Morocco had a poor first half but came back in the second half and managed to score two goals from only six attempts in the match, including one in the first half.
Morocco renewed its victory over Canada after beating them 2-1 in the last round of the group stage in the last edition on its way to an unprecedented achievement of reaching the semi-finals before being eliminated by France.
Morocco ended Canada's adventure, which achieved two unprecedented accomplishments in its participation in the global festival: its first victory and reaching the knockout stages for the first time.
On another note, the French national team managed to secure a difficult victory over Paraguay with a single goal scored by Kylian Mbappé via a penalty in the 70th minute of the match.
With this goal, Mbappé raised his tally to seven goals in the tournament, tying at the top of the scorers' list with Argentine Lionel Messi, and he also closed the gap with the latter in the list of historical World Cup scorers (20 to 19)
With this French victory, the "Les Bleus" set a date in the quarter-finals against the Atlas Lions next Thursday.
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Live Morocco is the first to advance to the quarter-finals after victory over Canada, and a Latin-European clash between France and Paraguay 10 World Cup 2026: Match schedule BBC News, Arabic Why you can rely on news...