{"id":12404,"date":"2013-01-28T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-28T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ghana-mma.com\/2013\/01\/afcon-morocco-hold-their-heads-high\/"},"modified":"2013-01-28T20:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-01-28T20:00:00","slug":"afcon-morocco-hold-their-heads-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/01\/28\/afcon-morocco-hold-their-heads-high\/","title":{"rendered":"AFCON: Morocco hold their heads high"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"71\">\n<p>By Tony Ubani<br \/>Failure to qualify for the quarter-finals of the Africa Cup of Nations may be viewed as a dismal result, but Morocco coach Rachid Taoussi believes they have reason to be proud.<\/p>\n<p>The Lions of the Atlas recorded their third successive draw on Sunday when they were held 2-2 by South Africa, a result that saw them eliminated from the tournament. It continues a poor run of form in the continent\u2019s premier competition, one they haven\u2019t won since 1976.<\/p>\n<p>Despite this, Taoussi feels that his young squad \u2013 in which the average age is 24 \u2013 is heading in the right direction.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe walk out with honour and dignity after a good game. I am very happy with the team and they played very well and they tried hard to improve,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor me the balance sheet is positive, we didn\u2019t lose a match. I know that the national team will do well because the foundations are there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Taoussi, who has only been at the helm of the national team for a matter of months, says his team are now looking forward to their upcoming World Cup qualifying games.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Bafana coach proud of players<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Bafana Bafana coach Gordon Igesund on the other hand admitted that he felt immense pride following his side\u2019s qualification for the quarter-finals of the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations.<\/p>\n<p>The South Africans secured their passage into the next phase of the competition courtesy of a hard-fought 2-2 draw with Morocco and it is the first time since 2002 that they have made it out of the group stage of the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe feel very, very proud\u201d said Igesund. \u201cWe did what we had to do and achieved our first objective. We can now look forward to our next game and the next 20 hours we\u2019re just going to relax.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Comments are moderated. Please keep them clean and brief.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> By Tony UbaniFailure to qualify for the quarter-finals of the Africa Cup of Nations may be viewed as a dismal result, but Morocco coach Rachid Taoussi believes they have reason to be proud. &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12404\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}