Qatar 2022: Heads held high!
The historic journey of Morocco, flag bearer of Africa and the Arab world, finished during in the semi-finals of the 2022 World Cup against France (2-0). The young team built by Walid Regragui and fruit of 15 years of training work is promised a bright future. The arrival of the Atlas Lions in the last four of a World Cup, which was a first for an African selection, is experienced as a starting point and not as an outcome. The Mohammed VI Football Academy offered the national team one player per line in this case: Youssef En-Nesyri, Azzedine Ounahi, Nayef Aguerd, and Reda Tagnaouti. In the starting lineup in the semi-finals, only captain Romain Saïss (32), who stayed only 20 minutes, and goalkeeper Yassine Bounou (31), were more than 30-years old. All the others are between 22 years old, like Ounahi, and 29, like Sofiane Boufal and Hakim Ziyech . “His Majesty has put a lot of resources into making Moroccan football progress, it is also His success”, said Regragui at the end of the match. “Africa and Morocco are making headway, we finally understood that we had to take ourselves in hand, we showed the world that in Morocco we work and we move forward”, continues the coach.
The Atlas Lions, who delivered a heroic participation in Qatar, were not unworthy against the reigning world champions and managed to brave fatigue and injuries to defend their chance until the end. For this semi-final, Walid Regragui changed his tactics by opting for a five-man defense, with the entry into play of Achraf Dari and Jawad El Yamiq, alongside Ghanem Saïs. On the French side, Didier Deschamps was deprived of the services of Dayot Upamecano and Adrien Rabiot, victims of a flu-like condition on Tuesday and replaced by Ibrahima Konaté and Youssouf Fofana. From the start of the meeting, the French players quickly entered the heart of the matter by opening the scoring in the fifth minute. This opener has put the nationals in an unprecedented situation because they have never been behind since the start of the tournament, but the reaction of the Lions was up to par.
If France joins Argentina in the World Cup final, the Moroccan selection will have the chance to engrave its name in the Qatari World Cup by challenging Croatia in a match for 3rd place.
The FRMF has chosen to raise the training of executives with the organization in Morocco of an exam, the coaching diploma (CAF Pro), of which two members of the first promotion were in Qatar, Walid Regragui and the Senegalese Aliou Cissé. And that’s not all because the development of Botola has allowed exploits at the continental level since the RSB of Berkane won the CAF Confederation Cup, and the WAC Casablanca won the last African Champions League, with in particular global players Tagnaouti, Yahya Attiatallah, who came on full of energy after the break on Wednesday, and Achraf Dari. The latter signed in Brest and played the entire semi-final, in place of Aguerd, injured and removed from the National Eleven where he was announced an hour before the match. Finally the Federation continued to opt for dual nationals from the start of their careers such as Hakimi, detected at 16, Mazraoui at 18, and Amrabat at 19. With his locally trained players and foreign-born stars, Walid Regragui succeeded to guide this team, which had chances to equalize against the Blues, with a strike from Azzedine Ounahi (10th) or an overhead kick from Jawad el-Yamiq (44th).
A.T.
