A stunning double from Barcelona’s Fermin Lopez propelled Spain to a 3-0 victory over Japan, securing their spot in the Olympic men’s football semi-finals on Friday.
Spain’s advancement followed a dominant performance by Morocco, who outplayed the United States.
Lopez, who was part of Spain’s victorious Euro 2024 squad, opened the scoring with a powerful left-footed strike from distance in the 11th minute of their quarter-final match in Lyon.
The 21-year-old midfielder added another goal in the 73rd minute with a superb volley from the edge of the box, controlling a corner from Sergio Gomez before finishing with his right foot.
Captain Abel Ruiz sealed the win with a late goal after Japan’s defense failed to clear another corner from Gomez.
Olympic champions in 1992 and silver medallists three years ago in Tokyo, Spain will now go to Marseille for a semi-final on Monday against Morocco, who were impressive 4-0 winners against the USA in Paris.
Morocco had the vast majority of a noisy and packed crowd at the Parc des Princes behind them and were simply too strong for their opponents.
Soufiane Rahimi opened the scoring from the penalty spot before Ilias Akhomach and captain Achraf Hakimi added further goals in the second half, with another spot-kick, by Mehdi Maouhoub, wrapping up the win.
After topping their group ahead of Argentina, Morocco are looking like a serious contender to win gold in Paris on August 9.
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The sizeable Moroccan community in France has turned out in big numbers over the last week to back their team, which came to the Games after winning last year’s Under-23 Africa Cup of Nations.
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They are a formidable side and the outcome never looked in doubt once Rahimi converted a penalty just before the half-hour mark after he had been fouled in the area by Nathan Harriel.
Rahimi, who plays in the United Arab Emirates and is one of Morocco’s three overage players at the Olympics, is the tournament’s top scorer with five goals in four games.
Morocco doubled their lead on 63 minutes. Abde Ezzalzouli produced a great piece of play on the left before picking out his fellow former Barcelona youngster Akhomach to finish at the near post.
Hakimi, playing on his Paris Saint-Germain home ground, ran through to make it 3-0 with 20 minutes remaining.
Substitute Maouhoub added another penalty in stoppage time after Harriel had been penalised for handball following a VAR review.
The remaining quarter-finals take place later Friday with Egypt playing Paraguay before hosts France, coached by Thierry Henry, take on two-time gold medallists Argentina in Bordeaux.
It will be the first meeting of the nations since Argentina players were recorded singing racist chants about their French counterparts as they celebrated winning the Copa America in mid-July.
FIFA announced that it would investigate the chants, which targeted France’s star striker Kylian Mbappe among others and included racist and homophobic insults.
AFP