The men's national soccer team falls by a landslide and the Argentina-Morocco match ends in controversy: "It's a circus"

The U.S. team suffered a crushing defeat to France (0-3) in its tournament opener. Despite managing to hold the scoreboard scoreless throughout the first half, the French overpowered the men's national team in the second half with an outstanding performance by the experienced Alexandre Lacazette (33).

With this result, the United States starts the tournament at the bottom of the table, level with Guinea on zero points. The next match of the group stage will be on Saturday, when the team will face New Zealand, which beat Guinea 2-1.

Controversy in the Argentina-Morocco match

The chaos and confusion at the end of the Argentina-Morocco match marred Wednesday's kickoff of the men's soccer tournament at the Paris Olympics.

The Albiceleste coached by Javier Mascherano debuted with a 2-1 defeat in Saint-Étienne, despite the match being called off by the official site of the Games and the social media accounts of both squads after Argentina's Cristian Medina scored the agonizing 2-2 draw.

The teams left the field amid a small invasion of Moroccan fans, apparently upset by the score that meant parity in the kickoff of the U-23 tournament, given simultaneously with Spain-Uzbekistan in Paris.

But the referee had not blown the final whistle and the players had to return two hours later for three minutes of added time and with the score 2-1 in favor of the Africans, as the judge disallowed the midfielder's goal for an offside detected after a VAR review.

"It's a terrible, gut-wrenching feeling, everything that happened. Honestly, in my career as a footballer, I never experienced a similar situation," Mascherano said. "It's a circus."

Lionel Messi, absent from Paris-2024, like most of the stars of the ball, called what happened "unusual."