Morocco was not among the favorites to win this World Cup. He was not even favored to qualify in his group, which had the current world runner-up, Croatia, and Belgium, third in 2018. Defender Saiss even said: “We are going without pressure, but our goal is clear: to qualify for the second phase”.
They are qualified for the semifinals. The first African country (and also the first Arab country) to make it this far in a World Cup. Under the command of a Moroccan coach, Walid Regragui — before, the African teams that reached the quarterfinals of the World Cup were commanded by foreign coaches. It was Regragui himself who said after eliminating Spain in the last 16: “At some point in Africa we need to be ambitious… and why not win a World Cup?”.
In 92 years of World Cup, never an African country won the title. Considering that there are only five spots for countries on the continent in the World Cup —while 13 are reserved for Europe—, the Moroccan campaign becomes even more impressive. The selection has, after all, knocked down three Europeans in the competition: Belgium (won 2-0 still in the group stage), world champion Spain in the round of 16 and Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal in the quarterfinals.
From 1930 to 1970, only one African country competed in the Cup —Egypt, in 1934. The continent lived through wars arising from colonization and only had a place guaranteed by FIFA in the World Cup from 1970, when Morocco competed for the first time in the competition . In 1982, Africa was entitled to two vacancies, in 1994 it had three, and since 1998 it has had five. Only five vacancies for a continent of 54 countries. Wouldn’t that be too little? Europe has 50 countries and 13 places guaranteed.
It seems irrelevant, but the World Cup stimulates the development of football. If you have a real chance to compete in it, you’ll want to structure yourself better so you can be in it. There are many European countries that, for some time, had no role in world football, and recently started to do so.
Croatia, a country of about 3 million inhabitants, was runner-up, produced one of the best in the world (Modric), has several of its holders being protagonists in Europe. Belgium was once insignificant and produced the “great Belgian generation” over the last decade, reaching the podium in Russia.
Africa has produced many talents and has more and more players playing in Europe’s top leagues, but with limited vacancies, many of its star players have no chance of playing in the World Cup. Cristiano Ronaldo (Portuguese) had the opportunity to be in five World Cups. Modric (Croatian) is already in fourth. Mohamed Salah (Egyptian) has only been in one so far. Mané (Senegalese) would have been in the second if he hadn’t been injured. I’m not comparing who has more talent, but in fact some had more chances to shine in World Cups than others.
In view of this, there are still those who question the 14 players naturalized from Morocco, as if the country were forging talent. They ignore the African diaspora, which forced thousands of families to flee wars or exploitation in countries that lived in a context of colonization until the 1950s and 1960s — Morocco, for example, only became independent in 1956.
These are players who grew up in other countries but have always cultivated their roots at home — as was evident in the celebration of Boufal and Hakimi with their Muslim mothers on the pitch.
Perhaps all this helps to explain why Africa has yet to win the World Cup. And even if Morocco doesn’t break this script now, the Lions of the Atlas have already left the continent marked in the history of this World Cup.
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