Ounahi Ends Canada's Dream, Mbappé Survives the Furnace — and Colombia Roll On

July 4 was the day the knockout rounds changed gear. Thanks to the tournament clock, it opened with the final act of the round of 32 — Friday night in Kansas City, early Saturday in UTC terms, which is why it sits on July 4 in the schedule — and then served up the first two ties of the round of 16. By the end of it, a co-host was out, the tournament’s form team had been dragged through a heatwave street fight, and the side almost nobody picked in December kept quietly looking like contenders.

Colombia 1–0 Ghana: the last ticket to the last 16, punched early

This one was effectively settled inside a quarter of an hour — a chaotic quarter of an hour. Jhon Córdoba pulled up with a groin problem in the 8th minute, Ghana lost Marvin Senaya to injury five minutes later, and Sky Sports dug out the quirk: no World Cup match on record had seen both teams forced into substitutions before the 15th minute. Then Córdoba’s replacement decided the tie. Luis Suárez burst down the right and squared for Jhon Arias — untracked at the far post — to guide in the only goal of the night in the 14th minute.

From there it was a procession that somehow stayed 1–0. Colombia racked up 20 shots to Ghana’s 8 and put eight on target to Ghana’s zero; Lawrence Ati Zigi kept the Black Stars alive with seven saves, Luis Díaz had a goal chalked off for a marginal offside on 56, and substitute Juan Fernando Quintero created five chances in twenty minutes. The xG line — 2.09 to 0.26 — reads like a training exercise. “The goal came too early for us,” admitted Ghana coach Carlos Queiroz, whose side ended the tournament with four shots on target in four games.

The wider picture is what should worry everyone else. Néstor Lorenzo’s side topped Group K ahead of Portugal, have kept three straight clean sheets, and are unbeaten in 90 minutes across their last seven World Cup matches — this was their first knockout win since 2014. One caveat: captain James Rodríguez, making a Colombian-record-tying tenth World Cup start on his 130th cap, came off at half-time, with Lorenzo citing flu-like symptoms running through the squad. “We have won absolutely nothing,” insisted Luis Díaz, the game’s official player of the match. Noted — but Switzerland, up next in Vancouver on July 7, have been warned.

Canada 0–3 Morocco: the first host falls — cruelly

The scoreline is a lie, or at least a half-truth. For 45 minutes at NRG Stadium in Houston, Canada were the better team — sharper, braver, and all over a Morocco side that lost tournament star Ismael Saibari to injury after 22 minutes. Yassine Bounou — born, of all places, in Montreal — had to deny Jonathan David early and then produce an outstretched foot to stop Tani Oluwaseyi one-on-one. ESPN’s numbers from that first half are brutal: one Morocco shot, 0.02 expected goals, and four Moroccan names in referee Michael Oliver’s book. A game with more yellow cards (8) than shots on target (7) was goalless at the break and shouldn’t have been.

Then quality did what quality does. Five minutes after the restart, Achraf Hakimi rolled a free kick to Azzedine Ounahi, who swept a first-time strike through traffic and past Maxime Crépeau. On 82, Brahim Díaz’s quick feet released Ounahi to bury a counter-attack for his second; in the eighth minute of added time Díaz slid in Soufiane Rahimi — Saibari’s replacement, who had already rattled the crossbar — to make it 3–0. Ounahi’s first two World Cup goals made him the first African to score a knockout-round brace since Senegal’s Henri Camara in 2002, and Morocco the first African nation ever to reach back-to-back quarter-finals.

The post-match exchange was almost as spiky as the game. “We were the better team,” said Jesse Marsch. “It was one play that made it 1-0. Otherwise, the game was ours.” Morocco coach Mohamed Ouahbi’s reply: “It takes some nerve to say that, when you lose 3-0.” Both can be right. Canada — a team that had never won a World Cup match before this summer — leave their home tournament as its first eliminated host, but with a run to the last 16 that redraws their ceiling. Morocco, who eliminated the Netherlands on penalties in the previous round, march on to a quarter-final that is also a grudge: France, who beat them in the Qatar 2022 semi-final, await in Foxborough on July 9.

Paraguay 0–1 France: heat, spite and one very cool head

Philadelphia gave the Fourth of July everything before kick-off — Idina Menzel singing the anthem, fighter jets, founding fathers in costume for the country’s 250th birthday — and then the match gave nobody anything for 70 minutes. In heat that pushed 39°C, with an extreme heat warning in effect, Paraguay parked a 5-4-1 in front of Orlando Gill and set about making France miserable. It worked disturbingly well: the first half produced no shots on target at either end — only the third such half in recorded World Cup knockout history, per Sky Sports, after Brazil–France 2006 and the 1990 final — and Paraguay finished with a 54% pass-completion rate, the lowest on record in a knockout match since 1966. They also, remarkably, escaped without a single booking; the only yellow cards went to three Frenchmen.

The breakthrough needed a substitute and a screen. Désiré Doué, on for Bradley Barcola, was tripped by Diego Gómez; Uzbek referee Ilgiz Tantashev waved play on, then reversed himself at the VAR monitor. Paraguay delayed, scuffed the penalty spot, and tried everything short of hiding the ball — and Kylian Mbappé stuttered his run-up and rolled it home anyway. It was his seventh goal of the tournament, level with Lionel Messi in the Golden Boot race, his 19th at World Cups all-time — one behind Messi at the top of that list — and a record-extending 11th in the knockout rounds, where no one else has more than eight. Gill, officially the player of the match, denied Mbappé a second with a stoppage-time double save before tempers boiled over at the whistle.

“They thought we would turn up in tuxedos, but we were there,” said Mbappé afterwards. Didier Deschamps was more diplomatic — “Paraguay use every trick in the book… I’m delighted that the players got the job done” — as France reached a fourth consecutive quarter-final. The takeaway for the rest of the field, as several observers noted: this France side can win ugly too.

The bracket from here

The round of 16 rolls on — Brazil–Norway headlines the next slate — and the quarter-final picture is sharpening: Morocco–France in Foxborough on July 9 is a 2022 semi-final rematch with revenge on the menu, while Colombia face Switzerland in Vancouver for the right to meet Argentina or Egypt. The full paths are on the knockout bracket, and if you need a refresher on how the expanded rounds work, our knockout explainer has you covered. As ever, every match is live on whatsthescore.football.

Sources

Colombia 1–0 Ghana

Canada 0–3 Morocco

Paraguay 0–1 France