France Clinches Spot in Olympics Semifinals with 1-0 Victory Over Argentina
Paris, France – The host nation, France, continued their dominant run at the Paris Olympics, securing a hard-fought 1-0 win over Argentina to advance to the semifinals. This victory maintains their perfect record on home soil.
Crystal Palace’s Jean-Phillipe Mateta headed in a cross from former club-mate Michael Olis five minutes from time, which ultimately proved enough for Thierry Henry’s men to progress.
VAR disallowed France a second goal later, but Argentina could not make their fortunes count until tempers flared among the players at the final whistle.
Argentina won the 2022 FIFA World Cup final between these great footballing nations and this time there was an equal amount of excitement and spillage.
Matera’s early goal set the tone for a dominant first-half display from Les Bleus as Enzo Millot headed wide for Geronimo Rulli to deny the French striker a second.
While Giuliano Simeone should have done better before the break, it was a similar story in the second half as Mateta again met Olis’ corner but this time his header went just wide.
Olise looked to have capped off a virtuous performance with an own goal 10 minutes from time, but VAR ruled the goal a foul in the set-piece.
Loic Bade hit the woodwork soon after and Claudio Echeverri – just coming on as a substitute – could have made France pay if he had kept his composure and stared at goal, only to go over as Les Bleus held on to set up a semi-final against. Egypt, who beat Paraguay 5-4 on penalties.
