Morocco’s defense has entered the history of World Cups

The Moroccan team, the revelation and the revolution of the 2022 World Cup, received only ten shots on its goal and a single goal in eight hours of playing in the tournament, an admired and unmatched defensive stability since Italy, which became world champion in Germany 2006.

Since then, no semi-finalist has made it this far with as few goals conceded as Morocco. Neither champion France in Russia 2018 nor Germany who reigned in Brazil 2014 or Spain who conquered the world in South Africa 2010. In all of them, each of the four teams reached that occasion with more goals against the current Moroccan team , but also each of the 32 competitors in those editions.

Morocco, like the Italian champions in 2006

No one has the same defensive record since Marcello Lippi’s Italy, world champion in 2006, including goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, defenders Fabio Cannavaro, Marco Materazzi or Gianluca Zambrotta, midfielders Gennaro Gattuso or Mauro Camoranesi and the wonderful technical qualities from Andrea Pirlo, Alessandro del Piero and Francesco Totti, or from Portugal, who was also a semifinalist at the time, with the premiere of Cristiano Ronaldo and with Luis Figo, Ricardo Carvalho , Tiago Mendes…

Three more cases since 1986

Since the World Cup adopted the current format, since Mexico 1986, only those two teams including the finalist Germany from Japan and Korea 2002 with Oliver Kahn as goalkeeper and Miroslav Klose as scorer; the world champion France in 1998 led by Zinedine Zidane, Didier Deschamps or Marcel Desailly and Italy who finished third in the World Cup in their country, in 1990, with Walter Zenga, Franco Baresi, Paolo Maldini or Roberto Donadoni, when helpless. o In the group stage, not in the round of 16 or in the quarterfinals, they reached the semifinals with only one goal against, as Morocco did today.

“The ‘Rocky Balboa’ of this World Cup”, as described by Walid Regragui, the invincible coach who has pushed the Moroccan team to unimaginable heights in the two and a half months since he made his debut on the bench with a 2-0 win against Chile, They don’t throw as many punches as the famous boxer in the saga movie released in 1976, they protect themselves, avoid them, frustrate every rival, to whom they give the ball and waiting for it, not just to defend. themselves, but to play, attack and suggest at breakneck speed. Fearless. With awesome determination.

One goal against 480 minutes

The only goal against five games, 480 minutes or eight hours of play, including extra time against Spain, highlighted by the fact that they eliminated Luis Enrique Martínez’s team, first in the round of 16; because then they did it against Portugal, in the quarterfinals, and because before that they got past Croatia (the current runner-up in the world, now in the quarterfinals), Belgium and Canada, which was the best team in the CONCACAF qualifying phase. There were three wins and two draws.

“It’s not a miracle, it’s the result of hard work,” said the coach, who continues to leave the bench in every game, in every order he gives to his players, who respond perfectly on the field to the plan designed he on the board. , inside a compact block, with defense, midfield and attack so close that they hardly give any space in the game between the lines of any rival, no matter how hard Joao Félix or Bruno Fernandes try in Portugal. Or Pedri and Gavi, with Spain.

Morocco has not been the same against these two powers as in the first period, where their only goal against the match, an own goal by Nayef Aguerd, one of their most headline central defenders, without minutes against in Portugal due to injury. His partner in the middle of the defense was also injured in all the duels: Romain Saiss, who had a bandage on his thigh from the beginning of the clash and was unable to cope in the 57th minute, when he remained on the ground. , asked on a stretcher and left the field.

Owned, by a rival

The property is always equal to his rival. He already did it against Croatia (32 percent), when he conceded only two shots; Belgium (32 percent), when they connected four shots between their three sticks and Canada (36 percent), when they conceded their only goal with an own shot, without one from their rival throughout the match, but with more emphasis , also due to the characteristics of the rival, when he crossed that stage towards the playoffs.

Against Spain and against Portugal, Morocco’s ball possession was identical: 22 percent. That doesn’t mean I’m going to give up on the attack. Not to play. The African team almost always bets on the release of the ball from the back, with the intervention and the decisive role that Sevilla’s goalkeeper Yassine Bono has in that facet, but with a transfer at full speed, vertically, which is almost without stopping.