{"id":228910,"date":"2025-10-16T11:36:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T11:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/228910\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T11:36:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T11:36:08","slug":"morocco-down-france-to-face-argentina-in-u20-world-cup-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/228910\/","title":{"rendered":"Morocco down France, to face Argentina in U20 World Cup final"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oct 15, 2025, 09:13 PM ET<\/p>\n

SANTIAGO, Chile — Third-string goalkeeper Abdelhakim El Mesbahi came off the bench near the end of extra time and made the decisive save in the shootout as Morocco defeated France 5-4 on penalties Wednesday to qualify for its first Under-20 World Cup final.<\/p>\n

They’ll face Argentina in the final on Sunday, after Mateo Silvetti scored the game’s only goal against Colombia to send La Albiceleste’s U20s to the championship game.<\/p>\n

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French goalkeeper Lisandru Olmeta’s own goal in the 32nd minute gave Morocco the lead before midfielder Lucas Michel<\/a> equalized in the 59th.<\/p>\n

It was tied 1-1 in regulation and near the end of extra time, when Morocco’s coach Mohamed Ouahbi sent in El Mesbahi for the shootout.<\/p>\n

El Mesbahi had headshots of France’s players printed on his water bottle and a small graphic of where they might direct their penalty kicks.<\/p>\n

The strategy worked because El Mesbahi, who hadn’t played in any of Morocco’s previous matches at the tournament, stopped France\u00b4s last shot from Djylian Nguessan.<\/p>\n

That sent Morocco into a championship match.<\/p>\n

Morocco’s starting goalkeeper Yanis Benchaouch<\/a> was injured during regulation time and replaced by Ibrahim Gomis in the 64th minute. Gomis made way for El Masbahi at the end of overtime.<\/p>\n

Morocco topped its group, beating Spain and Brazil in the process, and then beat South Korea and the United States to reach the semifinals.<\/p>\n

The African nation’s best previous performance in the tournament was fourth place in 2005.<\/p>\n

Information from The Associated Press was used in this story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oct 15, 2025, 09:13 PM ET SANTIAGO, Chile — Third-string goalkeeper Abdelhakim El Mesbahi came off the bench…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-228910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}