Morocco head coach Mohamed Wahbi questioned preparations for Kylian Mbappe’s crucial goal after his team led 2-0 fifa world cup The quarter-final defeat to France insisted it “must have been handball” while expressing confusion as to why the incident was not reviewed by VAR.Controversy arose during Mbappe’s goal, with several Moroccan players stopping play believing France had the ball during the match.Speaking after the World Cup in Morocco, Wahbi admitted he was unsure whether the incident should have resulted in a free-kick but insisted the handball itself was obvious.“Some players stopped because of handball. And it was definitely handball!” Wahbi told reporters. “I don’t know if there should have been a penalty; I don’t know… In the end, it was Kylian Mbappe’s individual effort that scored the goal.”
Why didn’t VAR intervene?
Despite Morocco’s protests, referee analyst Juan Guzman explained that the referee was correct in not disallowing the goal.Guzman said the handball was accidental and had no direct or immediate impact on the goal. What’s more, possession changed hands before Mbappe could make his decisive contribution, meaning the attacking phase that produced the goal is considered separate from the preceding incident.According to the rules of the game, VAR will only intervene in offensive handball situations where the offense directly leads to a goal or creates an immediate goal-scoring opportunity. Since these conditions were not met, the goal was allowed to hold.
Wahbi admits France deserved victory
Despite his disappointment at the controversial moment, Wahbi admitted France were the better team throughout the match.“We are disappointed but the first half was very difficult,” he said. “France are very good on the ball. They have a lot of possession and they cause a lot of problems for players on the wings and in midfield.”The Moroccan coach admitted his side struggled to mount an effective counter-attack whenever they regained possession.“When we had the ball, our transition wasn’t that good, so we needed to run a little more and they ended up in their comfort zone,” he added.Wahbi also admitted that France created clearer chances while Morocco lacked freshness and creativity.“We have to realize they are a great team. They have good players and have better chances to score. We lack ideas and freshness,” he said.Despite being eliminated from the World Cup again by France – who also eliminated Morocco in the 2022 semi-finals – Wahbi is confident the Atlas Lions will continue to close the gap on the world’s best teams.“Today, France is stronger, but we can compete and make further progress and maybe in four years we can eliminate them,” he said.He ended with a message of pride and reality to his players: “I told my players to keep their heads high because we gave everything… but we need to assess the situation. We can’t just say we are happy and proud of our performance. We need to move forward and in order to do that we have to be objective and do some self-criticism.”
