Skip to content
You can now search across every topic, entity and event.What's new
2026 FIFA World Cup
28JUL

Saibari nears fitness for France tie

2 min read
09:39UTC

Ismael Saibari's thigh strain is minor and a second scan showed encouraging progress, lifting Morocco's hopes he faces France in the 9 July quarter-final.

← Back to Nine World Cup ledgers, none of them agreeJump to analysis ↓
SportDeveloping
Key takeaway

A second scan clears Saibari as a minor strain, boosting Morocco's hopes he faces France on 9 July.

Ismael Saibari's thigh strain is minor, a second MRI scan confirmed, with Moroccan reporting describing encouraging progress 1. The forward had left Morocco's round-of-16 win over Canada injured inside 22 minutes , and the early fear was a tournament-ending blow.

The result lifts Morocco's hopes that Saibari can feature against France in the 9 July quarter-final. Coach Mohamed Ouahbi is expected to hold the call until close to kickoff before naming his side, a caution that fits a squad reluctant to risk aggravating a strain in a knockout tie.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Ismael Saibari, one of Morocco's key attacking players, hurt his thigh earlier in the tournament. A second scan of the injury has now come back showing it is healing well, which is a good sign for Morocco ahead of their quarter-final against France on 9 July. But the team's coach, Mohamed Ouahbi, is not confirming whether Saibari will actually play until nearer to kick-off, because a scan showing healing progress is not the same as knowing whether a player can perform at full speed in a high-pressure match.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

Morocco's caution around Saibari reflects squad dependence as much as medical risk: he is described as the side's top scorer, so Ouahbi faces a structural choice between protecting a player he has no like-for-like replacement for and fielding him under-tested against a France side that eliminated Morocco from the 2022 semi-final.

The delay in confirming the side until close to kickoff is itself a structural response to that dependence, buying medical staff the maximum possible window between imaging and team selection rather than committing early.

What could happen next?
  • Risk

    Selecting Saibari before he is fully match-sharp risks re-aggravating the thigh strain during a high-intensity quarter-final.

  • Consequence

    Ouahbi delaying confirmation of his side until close to kickoff limits France's ability to plan specifically around Saibari's availability.

Sources:ESPN
Mentions:Ismael Saibari →Morocco →France →Wayne Rooney →FIFA →Confederation of African Football →England →Qatar →Portugal →World Cup →Canada →Mohamed Ouahbi →
First Reported In

Update #37 · Switzerland complete the quarter-final field

ESPN· 8 Jul 2026
Read original →
Causes and effects
Caused by
Injury doubt over Saibari for France tie
Saibari's injury sustained against Canada is the injury now confirmed as a minor thigh strain.
Occurred 4 Jul 2026
Read story →
This Event
Saibari nears fitness for France tie
Morocco may have their forward back for the France quarter-final after a second scan confirmed the strain as minor.
Different Perspectives
French Football Federation
French Football Federation
The FFF called an 11:00 CEST press conference for 28 July, at its Paris headquarters, following an extraordinary executive committee meeting, at which Zinedine Zidane is expected to be presented as head coach succeeding Didier Deschamps. As of this writing no communique confirms the appointment, contract length or start date.
Morocco
Morocco
Morocco is pushing for the 2030 final at its Grand Stade Hassan II in Casablanca, a planned 115,000-seat venue that would be the world's largest football stadium on completion. The venue is contested by a Spanish petition for the Santiago Bernabeu, and FIFA has fixed neither the venue nor the tournament's proposed 64-team format.
FIFA
FIFA
FIFA's first tournament report, published 27 July, itemises nearly 300,000 accredited personnel, 73,700 security staff and 300,000 square metres of custom-grown turf, with no revenue or cost figure attached. As a Swiss association answering to its own Congress rather than a treasury, FIFA has followed the same operational-before-financial sequence it used after Qatar 2022.
Javier Tebas / La Liga
Javier Tebas / La Liga
La Liga president Javier Tebas said on 21 July that FIFA's system is rotten from the root and that Gianni Infantino's time as president has, in his words, concluded. Tebas has no vote in FIFA's process, so days after the IOC declined jurisdiction over a separate ethics complaint, he used the only instrument he has.
Mexico City government
Mexico City government
Head of government Clara Brugada presented a closing report on 22 July crediting the tournament with 44 billion pesos of economic activity, 2,000-plus accelerated public works and 100,000 formal jobs in June alone. The city has not published the method behind that figure, and three other Mexican bodies count the same five weeks differently.
Town of Foxborough
Town of Foxborough
Foxborough answered Kraft Group's June lawsuit on 7 July with a 61-page counterclaim, calling the stadium's owners 'a collection of multibillion-dollar corporations' trying to shift its $7.8 million security bill onto taxpayers. The town says its licensing power and its billing power run through the same board, and it wants the court to award its own costs too.