Morocco cruised into the World Cup quarter-finals for the second consecutive tournament after a clinical 3-0 victory over co-hosts Canada on Saturday. The scoreline, however, masked a difficult opening half for the North Africans, who were heavily pressed by an aggressive Canadian side and lost key forward Ismael Saibari to an early hamstring injury.<\/p>\n
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Despite failing to register a single shot on goal for the first 28 minutes and surviving several close scares, including a crucial leg save by goalkeeper Yassine Bounou, Morocco completely turned the game around after the break.<\/p>\n
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The breakthrough came 5 minutes into the second half when captain Achraf Hakimi picked out an unmarked Azzedine Ounahi during a clever free-kick routine, with Ounahi side-footing home from 25 yards. The goal deflated a spirited Canadian team, who were forced to play without their injured talisman Alphonso Davies.<\/p>\n
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Canada continued to push for an equalizer but lacked quality in the final third, leaving them vulnerable to Morocco’s lethal counter-attacks. Ounahi doubled the lead in the 82nd minute following a quick break assisted by Brahim Diaz, making him the first African player to score a brace in a World Cup knockout match since 2002. Substitute Soufiane Rahimi added a late third to seal the win.<\/p>\n
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Morocco will face either Paraguay or France in the quarter-finals on July 9, while Canada exits the tournament after a historic run that saw them secure their first-ever World Cup points.<\/p>\n
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–Reuters\/ChannelAfrica–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":38813,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[305,20],"class_list":["post-38812","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-special-projects","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Clinical Morocco stun Canada 3-0 to book World Cup quarter-final spot","published_date":"2026-07-05 08:06:12","news_description":"Clinical Morocco stun Canada 3-0 to book World Cup quarter-final spot","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/38812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/38812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38814,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/38812\/revisions\/38814"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=38812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}