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Malo Gusto\u2019s World Cup run will continue after France beat Morocco 2-0 to reach the semi-finals.<\/strong><\/p>\n The Chelsea right-back is now guaranteed to stay with France deep into the final week of the tournament.<\/p>\n The Guardian\u2019s live report confirmed France\u2019s quarter-final win, with Kylian Mbappe and Ousmane Dembele scoring in the second half.<\/p>\n France will now face either Spain or Belgium in the semi-finals on 14 July. That means Gusto\u2019s return to Chelsea pre-season will be delayed again.<\/p>\n For Gusto, it is another strong marker in his rise with France. For Xabi Alonso, it creates a small but useful opening at Cobham.<\/p>\n Gusto\u2019s extended World Cup run means Chelsea will have to manage his return carefully. He will need a break after the tournament before joining full pre-season work.<\/p>\n That could give Marco Palestra important minutes in the early part of Chelsea\u2019s summer schedule. The Italian full-back has arrived with a big reputation and now has a chance to impress Alonso before Gusto returns.<\/p>\n Chelsea already have strong depth on the right side, but pre-season often rewards availability. Palestra can use that window to learn the system, build rhythm and show he can handle senior-level demands.<\/p>\n Gusto remains one of Chelsea\u2019s key right-sided defenders. His France progress only underlines his status.<\/p>\n The timing, though, gives Palestra a real opportunity. If he starts well at Cobham, Chelsea may return from pre-season with more competition at right-back than expected.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Malo Gusto\u2019s World Cup run will continue after France beat Morocco 2-0 to reach the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Palestra Could Benefit From Gusto Delay<\/h2>\n