World Cup: Morocco’s Sofiane Boufal humiliated Spain’s Marcos Llorente

Sofiane Boufal is enjoying himself at the 2022 World Cup.

The former Southampton winger, who’s currently playing his club football with Angers in Ligue 1, has looked a bona fide superstar at times out in Qatar.

Boufal was electric in Morocco’s group stage campaign, particularly in their memorable 2-0 victory over Belgium.

Given his brilliance for the Atlas Lions at the tournament, it was no surprise whatsoever that he was named in Morocco’s starting XI to play Spain in the last-16.

What made Boufal’s inclusion all the more intriguing was the fact he’d be coming up against Marcos Llorente.

Llorente is a midfielder by trade, but was assigned to play as right-back by manager Luis Enrique rather than Dani Carvajal or Cesar Azpilicueta – a call that raised a few eyebrows before kick-off.

And unsurprisingly, the Spaniard did not enjoy his key battle with Boufal in the first half of proceedings at the Education City Stadium.

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In the 22nd minute of play, Llorente was made to look a tad foolish by his adversary – and it certainly wasn’t the only time it happened either.

Boufal managed to breeze past the Atletico Madrid man by the touchline with some brilliant, deceiving movement, all without touching the ball as well.

Llorente had no idea what was going on in front of his eyes and eventually, all he could do was watch Boufal fly past him and towards Unai Simon’s goal.

Check out the footage…

Video: Boufal’s impressive skills vs Llorente

Stop that, Sofiane!

He really made Llorente dance, something which Roy Keane might not be too happy about after his criticism of Brazil’s celebrations against South Korea on Monday evening.

Read more – World Cup: Roy Keane slammed Brazil for their celebrations vs South Korea

Daily Mail journalist Oliver Holt summed up Boufal’s FIFA Street-esque moment quite perfectly with a tweet which read: “The way Boufal tricked his way past Llorente there was brilliant. Have a feeling that may be viewed again. A few million times. Morocco fans making atmosphere inside Education City Stadium one of the best in the tournament so far.”

Yeah, we’ll certainly be replaying it a fair few times, that’s for sure.

Despite Boufal’s magnificence at times on the left-wing, which included five completed dribbles compared to Spain’s four as a whole unit, the two teams went in level at 0-0 for the half-time break.

Quiz: Can you name all 30 of these ‘streets won’t forget’ players from World Cups?

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