World Cup LIVE: France earn chance to defend title after Moroccan run ends

I alluded to it in the comments yesterday, but the two teams who beat Australia in Qatar have both made it to the final. It’s been a tough run for the Socceroos at World Cups — the drought-breaking 2006 tournament saw defending champions Brazil in their group. Eight years later it was both the 2010 finalists: Spain and the Netherlands. Four years ago they faced eventual winners France first-up, and of course this time the same thing happened to kick off their campaign last month.

Tough break.

The solution? Host the thing!

Here’s how Argentina and France made their way to the biggest game of them all.

Renowned football journalist Grant Wahl died from an aortic aneurysm, his widow said Wednesday.

Celine Gounder, an infectious diseases physician, cited an autopsy that was performed on Wahl, who collapsed and died last week while covering the World Cup in Qatar. He was 49.

“Grant died from the rupture of a slowly growing, undetected ascending aortic aneurysm with hemopericardium,” Grounder posted to her husband’s Substack page. “The chest pressure he experienced shortly before his death may have represented the initial symptoms. No amount of CPR or shocks would have saved him. His death was unrelated to COVID. His death was unrelated to vaccination status. There was nothing nefarious about his death.”

Wahl’s brother, Eric Wahl, posted a video to Instagram on Friday in which he shared his belief that Grant Wahl “was killed.” On Tuesday, he told the New York Post he regretted that comment.

“I regret the video,” he said. “I was in shock, and I just had limited information to go on.

“I’m especially sorry to any people in the Muslim world that I offended. It was never my intention.”

Grant Wahl’s body was returned to the US on Monday, and Gounder said the autopsy was performed by the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office.

Reuters

You can perhaps forgive a Socceroos tragic for having a bit of a blank spot around the 2006 knockout stages. Of course, France fell in a penalty shootout to Italy in the final of that tournament, to go with their wins in 1998 and 2018.

It all makes you wonder, could it have been a fourth World Cup they chase on Monday were it not for this moment of madness?

That was going to happen either way, but it’s the French fans who are smiling.

Supporters poured into Paris’s freezing Champs-Elysees boulevard after a World Cup semi-final between France and Morocco which for millions tugged at the heartstrings, as “Les Bleus” won 2-0 to reach the final for a second time in a row.

Deeply enmeshed by their colonial bonds and post-war flows of migrant labour from North Africa to France, the two nations share a history that has shaped their identities and their politics, and made for a sometimes edgy relationship.

France is home to a large Moroccan community, many of whom have dual citizenship.

“We preferred to come early because it will be chaos later on. We just want to celebrate our win and we can really feel it will get crazy,” said student Kerene Massuka who came with a friend carrying a French flag.

They were flanked by hundreds of police trucks securing the area as fans let off fireworks.

Crowds of supporters from both countries were seen entering the Christmas-decorated boulevard after the final whistle, where authorities were bracing for tens of thousands despite temperatures around 0 Celsius.

Reuters

The game no one wants to be part of — the third place play-off — will be at 2am Sunday (Sydney time).

There’s still a chance for Morocco to make more history: outside of Europe and South American nations, only the United States (at the inaugural World Cup in 1930) have taken the bronze medal. Croatia won the 1998 clash 2-1 over the Netherlands.

Didier Deschamps’ team enter some rarefied air in qualifying for consecutive World Cup finals. They’re the first team to do so since Brazil made three straight between 1994 and 2002 (winning those two, and of course losing in 1998 to Les Bleus).

Before that, West Germany lost in 1982 and 1986 before finally lifting the trophy at Italia 1990. The Dutch – still yet to break their duck – lost to Argentina in 1978 four years after falling to the West Germans. Brazil (1958 and 1962) and Italy (1934 and 1938) the only nations to go two from two and defend their crown.

Here endeth the history lesson.