Morocco coach: 'Dreaming of winning the World Cup is not a cliché'

*France - Morocco: 2pm on Thursday 15/12, on MetaSports.

After the quarter-final victory over Portugal 1-0, coach Regragui affirmed that everyone has the right to dream and his current dream is to win the World Cup with Morocco in 2022. In yesterday's press conference, the day before the semi-finals. with defending champions France, he repeated: "We want to win the World Cup and this is no cliché. After this tournament, maybe we will not have such a good opportunity. We are having an extraordinary energy to dispel all doubts".

Before the quarter-finals, Regragui once considered Brazil as the strongest team in the tournament. But after the Samba dancers lost to Croatia on penalties in the quarter-finals, he realized the opportunity was coming to Morocco. "We want to put Africa on top of the world. We have to be strong to get ahead," said Regragui, adding that one of his other goals is to change the mentality of African teams.

Against Morocco, the African teams that have progressed farthest in the World Cup were in the quarter-finals, with the cases of Cameroon (1990), Senegal (2002) and Ghana (2010).

Morocco could lose five players today, with centre-backs Nayef Aguerd, Romain Saiss, full-back Noussair Mazraoui and winger Hakim Ziyech all experiencing fitness problems, while winger Walid Cheddira is suspended. . According to Regragui, the injured players are recovering well. Except for Cheddira, he does not remove any players from the list of preparation to play, but will only allow players with 100% fitness to start.

The upcoming semi-final will be the confrontation of two players from the PSG club, right-back Achraf Hakimi of Morocco and left striker Kylian Mbappe of France. Both are in high form. While Hakimi is always in the group with the highest score in the match, Mbappe is leading the top scorer race with five goals. When asked about the plan to deal with Mbappe, coach Regragui replied: "We have no plans exclusively for Mbappe. France not only has him, but also Antoine Griezmann and Ousmane Dembele. But Hakimi is a top player. in his place. He will have 200% motivation to beat his friend."

Morocco is one of the teams with the least possession of the ball in this year's World Cup. In the quarter-finals with Portugal it was 27%, and in the match Spain in the 1/8 round it was 25%. In return, they make the opponents unable to score.

Meeting France today, Morocco may have to change its style. Unlike the other big boys, the French game does not rely too much on the ability to control the ball. "Having the ball makes some people dream, but what does it mean? 70% control with only two shots?", Regragui quipped. "We are here to win, not to own the ball. France coach Didier Deschamps understood this a long time ago. What we have to do is stop them from shooting."

Morocco has only conceded one goal since the start of the tournament, from central defender Nayef Aguerd's own goal in a 2-1 win over Canada in the final round of the group stage. Morocco's last defeat was a friendly 0-3 loss to the US on June 1. In 2022, they also only lost to Egypt 1-2 in the quarterfinals of the African Championship.