CNN
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After three hours of fixed noise, the Schooling Metropolis Stadium was dropped at library-like silence as Achraf Hakimi stood over the penalty spot.
Hakimi was born in Madrid and the the burden of Africa and the Arab world on his shoulders, however you’ll by no means have guessed because the Paris Saint-Germain coolly clipped the ball into the web and set off wild celebrations not simply within the stadium, but in addition in Morocco and for the Moroccan diaspora.
This was a historic day for Morocco, for Africa, for Arabs and for Muslims. The Atlas Lions had roared to stun 2010 World Cup winner Spain and attain the quarterfinals of Qatar 2022. The importance of the event was not misplaced on head coach Walid Regragui.
“Earlier than it was simply the Moroccans who supported us,” he mentioned forward of the sport towards Spain. “Now it’s the Africans and Arabs.”
For a lot of, it was the shock of the event, because the North Africans received their first ever knockout sport at a World Cup. However how did Morocco get to the ultimate eight of essentially the most prestigious competitors in world soccer?
Many eyebrows had been raised when the Moroccan Federation made the choice to sack Vahid Halilhodžić in August, simply over three months forward of the World Cup after the Bosnian coach had guided the workforce via qualifying to Qatar 2022.
However for these in Morocco, it was as an alternative the inheritor to the Moroccan teaching throne merely taking his place on the excellent time.
Affectionately nicknamed “Rass l’Avocat” (Avocado Head) due to his bald head, Regragui was a hard-tackling defender who, regardless of being born in France, selected to characterize the nation of his household, notching up 45 caps.
Since turning into a coach, Regragui has loved success in all places he has been, main a mid-table Moroccan membership FUS Rabat to their solely ever league title.
He had a quick stint in Qatar the place he received the league with Al Duhail SC, earlier than transferring again to Morocco the place he led Wydad Cassablanca to a league and Champions League double earlier this 12 months.
It was a matter of when, not if he would take cost of the nationwide workforce. Many Moroccans thought that it may very well be after the World Cup or in a number of years, however none had been sad when it was introduced he would take over the nationwide aspect lower than 100 days earlier than their first sport on the World Cup.
In African soccer, Regragui has usually been in contrast with José Mourinho due to his tactical self-discipline and stellar man-management abilities. Each of these have been current within the World Cup.
Morocco has performed greater than 400 minutes of soccer on the event and negotiated a penalty shootout, and but the Atlas Lions have conceded simply as soon as – and that was an unlucky personal purpose towards Canada within the workforce’s last Goup F match.
After the dramatic shootout win towards Spain, video circulated on social media of Regragui working to the stands and hugging and kissing his mom who was within the crowd.
Regragui is a French-born Moroccan. He has assembled essentially the most nationally numerous workforce on the World Cup – 14 of the 26 gamers had been born exterior of Morocco from six completely different nations – and has seamlessly built-in this group gamers from all over the world into one coherent unit.
World Cup tournaments might be robust emotionally to navigate – gamers are away from residence for weeks – however Regragui has counteracted that by permitting the gamers’ households to stick with the workforce in camp in Qatar.
As with that of emotional video of Regragui embracing his mom, one of the heartwarming pictures of the World Cup was Hakimi kissing his mom after Morocco’s victory towards Spain.
It’s not solely the gamers who’ve had their households with them. Regragui himself was filmed going to the stands to go to his mom Fatima who informed Morocco broadcaster Arriyadia how a lot it meant to her.
“Throughout his complete profession as a participant and as a coach, I by no means traveled to observe him,” Fatima mentioned. “I’ve been dwelling in France for greater than 50 years now and that is the primary competitors that I left Paris for.”
The Royal Moroccan Soccer Federation (FMRF) must also be credited with the Atlas Lions’ success at Qatar 2022.
After a long time of footballing mediocrity, the FMRF – with the backing of King Mohammed VI – determined to overtake the nation’s soccer construction.
In 2009 the FMRF opened its nationwide soccer academy, the Mohamed VI Soccer Academy – which helped develop present worldwide gamers like Nayef Aguerd and Youssef En-Nesryi – in addition to attempting to unearth expertise within the Moroccan diaspora by using scouts from throughout Europe to flag any eligible youth gamers in Europe.
The federation additionally started investing in ladies’s soccer, growing soccer in faculties and golf equipment in addition to a making a nationwide league construction. Funded by the FMRF, Morocco is at present the one nation on the planet to have two tiers of girls’s soccer which are each totally skilled.
The crown jewel of Morocco’s soccer funding is the Mohamed VI Soccer Complicated simply exterior Rabat.
The coaching complicated incorporates 4 five-star accommodations, eight FIFA commonplace pitches – certainly one of which is indoor in a climate-controled constructing – as nicely a medical facility that features a dentist.
That funding during the last decade has begun to repay.
For the primary time in historical past, Moroccan golf equipment are the holders of the boys’s and ladies’s African Champions League titles as nicely the boys’s Confederations Cup – Africa’s Europa League.
Morocco can be the African Nations Championship champion – a continental event the place nations put out groups solely that includes gamers who play domestically – whereas the ladies’s workforce got here second within the Girls’s Africa Cup of Nations earlier this 12 months and certified for its first World Cup.
Morocco’s success on the World Cup could also be greatest story of the event to this point, however it isn’t the not the results of luck and grit, however moderately experience and planning.
