For the first time in the history of the World Cup, an African team will play a semi-final. Portugal’s faller (1-0) this Saturday in the quarter, after having subdued Spain in the 8th (0-0, 3-0 on penalties), Morocco awaits its opponent – France or England – that he will challenge on Wednesday at Al-Bayt Stadium in Al-Khor, Qatar.
“It’s crazy, reacted Sofiane Boufal on TF1. We’re living a dream and we don’t want to wake up. I felt shivers. ” And now ? “There remains the semi-final and Inch’Allah, the final. I wish good luck to the French team and I hope to find them in the semi-finals. »
The center front Youssef En-Nesyri took advantage of a failed outing by Portuguese goalkeeper Diogo Costa to score the only goal of this quarter-final (42nd) with a fine header. But the victory of the Atlas Lions is anything but undeserved against a generally disappointing team, which came up against a Yassine Bounou still brilliant in his cages, as on this strike from Bruno Fernandes who was heading for the skylight ( 83rd).
Walid Regragui, from firefighter to hero
“I don’t even understand how we can be criticized, reacted coach Walid Regragui on beIN Sports, about the defensive style of his training. We play with our values, we play with our heart. Football is that too. We lost a lot of good players before the World Cup, we lost some during it. We fight with our weapons and I think that’s good for football. We have a unique group, if we are tactically in place, we can move mountains. That’s what we did today. »
Already private of Nayef Aguerd for this quarter, Morocco lost this Saturday its other central defender, captain Romain Saïss, released shortly before the hour mark. But it would have taken much more to break the dynamics of a team carried by 90% of the stadium Al-Thumama from Doha, a whole country and a whole diaspora.
“It was impossible to dream that, greeted Regragui, named at the beginning of September in place of Vahid Halilhodzic, in conflict with several players. I arrived three months ago as a firefighter, I traveled a lot, I worked a lot with the players. We even took the lead sometimes with some, but they understood where I wanted to go. For now, the terminus has not been reached.