United States men’s soccer team got routed 4-0 by Morocco in the quarterfinals on Friday, a run that had seen the U.S. reach the knockouts for the first time since Sydney 2000 was ended in brutal fashion.
“To go down in the nature that we did was tough, pretty frustrating,” defender Walker Zimmerman said. “It’s sad because I think it’s a group that has a lot of belief in each other and a lot of character and I don’t think it showed through and that’s what’s hard is knowing how much everyone did care, had each other’s back.”
Soufiane Rahimi, Ilias Akhomach, Achraf Hakimi and Mehdi Maouhoub scored the goals at Parc des Princes that ended U.S. hopes of a medal at the Paris Games and set Morocco up for a semifinal against Spain, which beat Japan 3-0.
The U.S. — playing at the Olympics for the first time since Beijing 2008 — was outclassed by an impressive Morocco team that had already beaten Argentina in the group stage.
