Sirens and barricades arrive before the opening whistle. In Paris (and not only in Paris), in the hours leading up to France's clash with Morocco, the big screens in the squares are switched back on under the watchful eye of thousands of officers. In Boston, on the other hand - and fortunately - the wait has the smiling faces of families waving French and Moroccan flags, sometimes together.
This is the paradox of a quarter-final that is almost like a final: France with Kylian Mbappe, Ousmane Dembele and Michael Olise against Morocco with Achraf Hakimi, Brahim Daiz and Ismael Saibari, the latter one of the tournament's brightest revelations. Two teams that no longer face each other as favourite versus underdog, but as equals - two standouts of modern football.
From protectorate to billion-euro deals
Yet, behind the sporting contest lies a much longer story, one that we don't claim to tell in detail here, but we can try to remember it together.
It started in the years of the French protectorate over Morocco, which ended in 1956 and left a deep legacy of language, exchanges, and migration.
Today, nearly a million Moroccans live in France and, at the same time, tens of thousands of French people have chosen to reside in Morocco. For decades, the relationship seemed natural: France was the first cultural and economic horizon, French the language of social advancement.
In recent years, however, the relationship between the two countries has gone through moments of crisis: Paris's rapprochement with Algiers, the Pegasus affair, visa restrictions, and misunderstandings after the 2023 earthquake have fueled mutual distrust.
The turning point came in 2024, with French support for Morocco's plan for Western Sahara and Emmanuel Macron's state visit to Rabat, followed by the usual billion-euro deals for major infrastructure projects that sealed a reconciliation that once seemed distant.
Politics far from reality?
But politics, especially when swept up by a flood of money, moves much faster than society. In Morocco, in fact, many young people now look more to English than to French: it's the language of international universities, technology, and social media, which are often seen as the most important vehicle for the future.
It's not a rejection of France, but rather the desire to no longer depend on the former colonial power.
On the same dividing line is the rise in France of identity and anti-immigration rhetoric from the far right, which in recent decades has turned the North African - and especially Moroccan - diaspora into one of the most frequent targets of public debate.
Inevitable and hoped-for cultural cross-pollination
Yet, the reality shown by this World Cup - with this match as a shining example - is that your place of birth, or that of your parents, isn't always a problem, but rather a resource.
Many French players have North African roots and, likewise, many Moroccans were born and raised in Europe, some even in France. And this is also why it's time to move beyond the idea that a possible Moroccan triumph on the pitch - as opposed to what happened four years ago in Qatar - could still be labelled solely as a simple revenge of the former colony over the coloniser.
The truth is something else: it tells us of a world where, by now, identities - just like societies - are multiple, mobile, and, to quote Zygmunt Bauman, 'liquid'.
Football bridging a widening gap
Nevertheless, tensions tend not to disappear: they remain in fears, in social media comments, in the - unfortunately real - need to deploy five thousand officers for a match played on the other side of the world.
When the referee blows the whistle to start the match in Boston, for ninety minutes we'll focus on the sporting feats, with a ball at their feet, of two of the world's top eight national teams.
The meaning of France vs Morocco, however, will go far beyond the result, and the police forces mobilised will try to prevent the inevitable, confirming that, more than ever, Paris and Rabat are close in the halls of power, but distant in the imagination of a significant part of their societies.
A distance that football aspires to bridge, but which, unfortunately, will end up widening, because the five thousand officers on the streets confirm the social failure of the politics. That said, when the match is over, everyone will be responsible for their own actions. Just don't call the worst offenders 'fans'.
