France – Morocco: predictions and odds for D-Day

FRANCE – MOROCCO. The France team faces Morocco this Wednesday, in the semi-finals of the World Cup. The forecasts give the Blues the winners, with irrevocable odds for the Moroccans…

[Mis à jour le 14 décembre 2022, à 12h17] The forecasts for the France – Morocco match, this Wednesday, December 14, in the semi-final of the 2022 World Cup, are final: the Blues are arch-favorites according to the odds which have been surging for a week or so on betting sites in line and other bookmakers. And the exchanges of courtesies between the two teams, which have been raining for three days at a press conference, will do nothing. It will take a winner this Wednesday evening, at the end of the match and for the moment it is the French team which is popular. This obtains its best odds at just over 1.50 on D-1 while a Moroccan victory is at best 5 this Wednesday morning, but more often exceeds 7. Here are the details of the odds of the biggest bookmakers, noted around 12 p.m.:

The main odds of France – Morocco

What predictions for the exact score?

Regarding the score, if the Blues are arch favorites and have a fiery attack, we know the talent of Morocco to defend his nets, he who has only taken one goal since the start of the competition, during the group stage against Canada. The odds for the exact score of the match France – Morocco are therefore, as usual, quite reasonable.

Winamax shows 4.7 for a French victory by the lowest score (1-0). The best odds that come next are all the same for a 2-0 in favor of the men of Didier Deschamps (odds at 5.5). A 2-1 win gets odds of 8, a 3-0 win rises to 8.5, more than a draw (odds at 7.5 for 0-0 and 6.5 for 1-1). The other scores offered see their odds soar.

Morocco surprises everyone

Obviously, we keep repeating it, predictions are far from being an exact science and the Blues are probably right to lay low before their semi-final. Morocco will have surprised everyone since the start of the competition and has even had the luxury of eliminating Belgium (in the group stage), Spain and Portugal in turn. The Atlas Lions managed to reach the semi-finals of the World Cup by displaying all their individual talents, in addition to a solidarity and a team spirit of rare solidity in the face of adversity (only 1 goal conceded since the start of the World Cup).

Beyond the enormous sensation caused in Qatar, Morocco is also the first African team to reach a semi-final of the World Cup, which makes this France – Morocco the rendezvous of an entire continent and therefore one more motivation for the men of Walid Regragui.

Three wins, a draw and a loss on penalties for France against Morocco

Morocco and France have never had the opportunity to compete in a major international competition like the World Cup. If we go back far enough in time, we nevertheless find five friendly matches between the two nations. The most recent took place in 2007, at the Stade de France, and ended in a draw (2-2) with goals from Sydney Govou and Samir Nasri on the French side, against two goals from Tarik Sektioui and Youssef Mokhtari for Moroccans.

Seven years earlier, in 2000, France had beaten the Atlas Lions in Casablanca (5-1), with goals from Thierry Henry, Youri Djorkaeff, Christophe Dugarry, Nicolas Anelka, a certain Zinédine Zidane and Sylvain Wiltord. Noureddine Naybet had managed to slightly limit the breakage on the hour mark. Further back in time, there are still two victories – 1 to 0 in 1999 and 2 to 1 in 1988 – and a match that is not useless to remind the most optimistic: during the Hassan II Tournament in 1998, a few months before the World Cup in France, the Blues had been held in check 2 to 2 with a final victory for Morocco (6-5) on penalties . Deschamps was on the field that day and must remember this defeat on the wire… just like having lifted the World Cup less than two months later.