PARIS (Reuters) -Morocco reached the Olympic men’s football semi-finals for the first time with a resounding 4-0 win over the United States that included two penalties at the Parc des Princes on Friday.
Morocco dominated from the start to prevail in their first-ever Olympic knockout match and set up a clash with Spain, who claimed a 3-0 win over Japan.
A Fermin Lopez double, who scored in the 11th and 73rd, and an Abel Ruiz effort in the 86th sealed the win for La Roja, who three years ago beat Japan in the semi-finals at the Tokyo Olympics.
Morocco, backed by their passionate supporters who packed the Paris St Germain stadium, opened the scoring in the 29th minute when Soufiane Rahimi earned them a penalty and converted for his fifth goal of the tournament.
Ilias Akhomach doubled their lead with a close-range finish from Abde Ezzalzouli’s cross in a brilliant team move just past the hour mark before PSG’s Achraf Hakimi got on the scoresheet after a fine solo run to make it 3-0 20 minutes from time.
“I felt like I was playing at home in this stadium where I play for my club, but also because our fans were very loud and were here in big numbers,” 25-year-old defender Hakimi told reporters.
“It was an almost perfect game, a very resounding result. The work from the team was superb, we had motivation and after the first goal we were able to find more.
“Fans have been following us all tournament, I hope they can follow us all the way to the final. We want to make them proud.”
Substitute Mehdi Maouhoub sealed the rout with another penalty in stoppage time following a VAR review for a handball.
The U.S., playing in their first Olympic quarter-final for 24 years, were better for a short spell after the break but did not look dangerous and had only one goal attempt in the match.
“We have always aimed for gold here,” forward Akhomach, 20, said. “That’s our mission since we arrived here. And we are going to leave everything on the pitch to achieve that.
“It feels great to know we have two more games guaranteed now but we only think about the gold medal.”
(Reporting by Janina Nuno Rios in Paris; Editing by Ken Ferris, Ed Osmond and Clare Fallon)
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