France v Morocco Betting Markets
Morocco are likely to be the furthest-progressing African side in the World Cup for the second tournament running. Mohamed Ouahbi has helped his team navigate a path to the quarter final after beginning with a 1-1 draw against Brazil before victories over Scotland and Haiti. They have then come up against Netherlands and landed a penalty shootout win before beating Canada more comfortably.
Ouahbi is a relatively new appointment as manager, although he's continuing the good work of his predecessor. His team are the big outsiders here and they're trading at around the 5/1 mark to land a normal time win. However, the bottom line is that Morocco are not easily beaten. There hasn't been a defeat in sight for a long time and we should note that they're the AFCON champions after being awarded a victory in the final.
Nevertheless, this is a tough assignment against a team who have now scored fourteen goals in the World Cup already. France have some excellent attacking weaponry and we can see them finding a way past a stubborn Moroccan defence here. The odds of 1.57 to win the match in normal time suggests that Didier Deschamps' side have a 65% chance of securing a victory without the need for extra-time.
However, Paraguay kept things tight in their last sixteen clash and a Kylian Mbappe penalty was the only thing that France had to show for their endeavours after ninety minutes. Perhaps another slender margin of victory could be on the cards, with Deschamps having Ousmane Dembele, Desire Doue, Bradley Barcola and Rayan Cherki as attacking weapons that can find the net.
There's the option to back France to win and combine this with BTTS No to get an odds-against quote. Perhaps this could be the best route considering that Les Bleus haven't conceded many goals in this tournament.
Goals Under/Over
There's nothing between the Over 2.5 Goals and Under 2.5 Goals betting odds. There's a case that can be made for both outcomes. The former has been the outcome in four of France's five World Cup games thus far. They went over the line themselves in the group stage when recording 3-1, 3-0 and 4-1 victories against Senegal, Iraq and Norway respectively, while they then enjoyed a 3-0 success against Sweden.
The Overs run stopped happening when they came up against a defensive Paraguay side who were ready for a battle. That 1-0 win hints at the fact that perhaps one or two goals might be all that France score against a similarly tough team to break down. Morocco will be fully aware of the danger presented by the opposition and were able to cage Netherlands in a similar fashion.
The 1-1 draw with the Dutch outlines that Under 2.5 Goals might well be the value wager in this encounter. Morocco also played out a 1-1 draw with Brazil and were successful in shutting out Haiti, Scotland and Canada.
BTTS
It's hardly a surprise that BTTS No is trading as the shortest-priced selection of the two. After all, France have managed to shut out Iraq in the group stage before landing clean sheets against Sweden and Paraguay. They limited both of the latter teams to limited chances and it's clear that Deschamps adopts a pragmatic approach where a tight defence provides the platform for victory.
Paraguay's Expected Goals was 0.13 against France which serves to illustrate that this was a one-sided game where the South American side only had four shots in the opposition box. Sweden fared a little better with an XG of 0.70 although this was partly down to the fact that they were so open at the back and Les Bleus actually went under their XG for that clash.
Morocco's 3-0 win against Canada was all the more interesting due to the fact that the Atlas Lions had an XG of just 0.82 which was actually lower than the opposition. They had a total of five shots but only nine touches in the penalty area. However, they were the better team against the Dutch and scored a late equaliser, while they were also on target against Brazil when opening the scoring during the group stage.
First Goalscorer
Kylian Mbappe has scored seven goals in this World Cup and the France captain is clearly the first port of call when it comes to this market. He's leading the line for the odds-on favourites and has plundered regularly throughout the tournament. Irrespective of the opposition, it's still a formidable achievement to rack up his goal tally and he merits huge respect.
Mbappe is on spot kicks and has the pace and trickery to unlock the tightest defence. It was his penalty which helped France over the line against Paraguay, although Ousmane Dembele is the alternative. The Paris Saint-Germain man was able to score a first-half hat-trick against Norway and can operate dangerously in the wide right position.
Bradley Barcola has racked up a couple of goals and got the nod to start in the last match, with Michael Olise still awaiting his first World Cup effort. For Morocco, Ismael Saibari has racked up three goals including an impressive effort against Brazil. Achraf Hakimi will come up against a number of current and former PSG team-mates and it wouldn't be a huge surprise if he gets forward into good scoring positions.