Kylian Mbappe has scored from just about every spot on the field. But a World Cup penalty? That was new territory — until Thursday night in Boston, when it suddenly wasn’t. The France captain watched his 28th-minute spot kick get saved by Morocco’s Yassine Bounou, becoming just the second French player ever to miss a World Cup penalty.
His explanation? A mix-up with the referee that threw off his rhythm completely.
“I shot my penalty poorly, but it was tricky. There was a mix-up,” Mbappe said after the game. “The referee tells me there’s a penalty. I get ready. Then he comes to tell me there might not be a penalty after all. I let myself get distracted. I wasn’t familiar with that scenario yet.”
And he’s not wrong about how it went down. Referee Facundo Tello pointed to the spot after Mbappe went down under a challenge from Noussair Mazraoui. Then came the VAR check — more than three minutes of it — that delayed everything and kept interrupting Mbappe’s run-up. By the time he finally struck it, Bounou had read him clean. Right direction. Easy save.
Mbappe didn’t hide his frustration. There was a tense exchange with Tello right after the miss, and France went into halftime scoreless in a game that suddenly felt like a grind.
Atonement Came Fast
The miss didn’t haunt him long. In the 60th minute, Mbappe slid a composed finish inside the right post to open the scoring. Five minutes later, Ousmane Dembele doubled it. Game over. 2-0 win. France punched their ticket to a third straight World Cup semifinal.
That penalty miss snapped a solid run from the spot for Mbappe. He’d converted his first three World Cup penalties, including both attempts in the 2022 final shootout loss to Argentina. He’s still very much in the Golden Boot race too, sitting just behind Lionel Messi after his goal against Morocco.
France now waits for the winner of Belgium and Spain in the semifinal, scheduled for Tuesday in Dallas. Mbappe’s miss will be a footnote. But for three minutes in Boston, it was the whole story.
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