The star of the French national team, Antoine Griezmann, praised the Moroccan national team’s performance and the technical capabilities of its players, after the match that brought the two teams together on Wednesday evening, which ended with France’s 2-0 victory in the semi-finals of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, which is currently being held in Qatar.
The French national team qualified for the World Cup final after defeating its Moroccan counterpart with two clean goals scored by Theo Hernandez and Randall Kolo Mwani in the fifth and 79 minutes, on Wednesday evening.
The French national team, the defending champion, will meet its Argentine counterpart in the final next Sunday, while the Moroccan national team will compete for third place with its Croatian counterpart on Saturday.
Griezmann, who was crowned player of the match, said: I think my focus is now more focused on the final scheduled for Sunday, and I try to remain realistic and maintain calm and focus.
Griezmann praised the Moroccan national team, saying: The match was in the semi-finals of the World Cup, the Moroccan national team played wonderfully, both in terms of tactics and on the mental level, they were on a high degree of concentration.
He added: In the first half, they caused us problems, and our coach changed tactics to deal with this situation, and this change helped us a lot and we felt relieved after our second goal.
On the course of the match against Morocco, Griezmann said: Scoring an early goal boosted our confidence in ourselves. The match was difficult and had many fine details.
French defender Julis Conde said: The match was not easy at all. The Moroccan national team caused us many problems. They were excellent and played a very good match.
He added: We knew that from the beginning, and we focused our attention from the beginning, and we played strongly, and in the second half, we were able to defend well and score the second goal. We are now in the final. I can hardly believe that we are in the final. I am very happy with this unity among the team members. This is the secret of success.
On the performance of the Moroccan national team, Conde said: We were not surprised by the performance of the Moroccan national team, as this was a match in the World Cup semi-finals.
Theo Hernandez, who scored the first goal for the French national team, said: It was a complicated and difficult match, we did not know at first how they would play.
And about the opening of the scoring, Hernandez said: Of course, it is an honor to score the goal, and now I feel very proud of reaching the World Cup final.