<\/p>\n
The Atlas Lions of Morocco<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Manager Walid Regragui has said Morocco are \u201cone of the four best teams in the world now\u201d, as they aim to create more history and reach a World Cup final.<\/p>\n Today, Morocco will become the first African team to play in a World Cup semi-final when they face holders France (19:00 GMT kick-off).<\/p>\n \u201cWhy not reach the final of the World Cup? We will show great desire and try to pull off an upset,\u201d said Regragui.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve come to this competition to change mindsets within our continent.\u201d<\/p>\n Morocco have already beaten Belgium, Spain and Portugal on their way to the last four in Qatar.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore every match people thought we would get knocked out, but we\u2019re still here,\u201d added Regragui, who only took charge of the side in August. \u201cWe\u2019re getting closer to our dreams and we\u2019ll fight to get there.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we say the semi-final is enough, I don\u2019t agree. We aren\u2019t satisfied with the semi-final and being the first African team to do that. We want to go further.<\/p>\n \u201cYou might think that\u2019s crazy, but a bit of craziness is good.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re hungry. I don\u2019t know if it will be enough, but we want Africa to be on top of the world. I know we\u2019re not favourites but we\u2019re confident.\u201dMorocco\u2019s previous best performance at a World Cup came in 1986, when they lost in the last 16. The other four times they had qualified before this year, they had failed to progress from the group stage.<\/p>\n They were 22nd in FIFA\u2019s world rankings at the start of this tournament, but have drawn 0-0 with 2018 runners-up Croatia and recorded three victories over sides ranked in the top 10.<\/p>\n A 2-0 victory over a Belgium team ranked second in the world helped Morocco top Group F, before they beat Spain on penalties in the last 16 and then won 1-0 against Portugal in the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n \n\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Atlas Lions of Morocco \u00a0 Manager Walid Regragui has said Morocco are \u201cone of the four best teams in the world now\u201d, as they aim to create more history and reach a World Cup final. Today, Morocco will become the first African team to play in a World Cup semi-final when they face holders […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[1497,5656,177,1010,618,1922,285],"class_list":["post-1264977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-sports","tag-face","tag-france","tag-higher","tag-morocco","tag-set","tag-target","tag-today"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1264977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264977\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1264977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1264977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1264977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}