Kylian Mbappe rushed to support a France supporter after a wayward shot struck them before the World Cup semi final vs Morocco.
The 23-year-old has rarely missed the target during this winter’s tournament in Qatar, scoring five goals during Les Bleus’ run to the last four. But prior to their meeting with Morocco at the Al-Bayt Stadium, his radar was clearly off.
As both sets of players prepared for the historic meeting, Mbappe was taking shots towards the goal in front of where the pocket of France supporters were housed. And after one went into that section, footage showed the Paris Saint-Germain superstar jumping over the advertising board to run towards the affected fan.
He then reached up towards the supporter in a France shirt, who was looking worse for wear, holding a hand over his face. The incident clearly didn’t impact the World Cup holders’ preparations too much thought, as they got off to a rapid start against Morocco.
After less than five minutes Theo Hernandez opened the scoring, ending the Atlas Lions’ long run of not conceding a goal during the tournament. Olivier Giroud had a chance to make it two, but fired his shot against the post.
While Mbappe’s warm-up was punctuated by his errant effort, Morocco’s was dominated by injury concerns. Nayef Aguerd and Romain Saiss both came into the tie with injury concerns, but were named in their starting XI.
However, Aguerd failed to make the opening whistle with Achraf Dari instead playing and Saiss managed just 21 minutes before he was replaced by Selim Amallah. Morocco responded well to the double blow and were close to equalising before the break as Jawad El Yamiq hit the post with an ambitious overhead kick.
They also had strong shouts for a penalty turned down by referee Cesar Ramos, who instead booked Sofiane Boufal for a collision in the box with goalscorer Hernandez. And the decision to not award a spot-kick divided the BBC studio , with Alan Shearer suggesting Ramos got it right - with Rio Ferdinand in the opposite camp.
“Not for me no, Hernandez actually gets the ball,” Shearer explained, before Ferdinand interjected: “Anywhere else on the pitch that’s a foul…so why hasn’t he given a penalty! It’s out of order. He definitely doesn’t deserve to be booked anyway!”
