Morocco will depart Qatar with a sense of disappointment but also a sense of pride for having put its name into the annals of history by being the first African side to reach the World Cup semi-finals, according to their coach, Walid Regragui.
On Wednesday, France prevailed against Morocco with a score of 2-0, and now Morocco will compete with Croatia in a play-off for third place, while France will take on Argentina in the championship match.
According to what Regragui said to the press, “We realise that we accomplished a significant accomplishment already.” “We are aware that the media, social media, and on TV showed photographs of everyone in our nation beaming with pride at what we accomplished, and we saw those pictures.
“We are heartbroken for the people of Morocco tonight; we wanted to do all in our power to keep the dream alive. However, we are satisfied with the results of our efforts. We had the feeling that we could have gone even farther, but these little things aid actual champions, which is something that we witnessed tonight, of course.
Regragui conveyed to his team that he was pleased with their performance.
Morocco, who entered the game with the greatest defensive record in the competition, let up a goal on France’s first real assault five minutes into the match. France’s goal was the first goal of the tournament.
Regragui continued by saying, “Today, if I have regrets, it’s the beginning of the game.” “We got off to a terrible start, and we let up a goal very early on, which was the factor that ultimately decided the game.
They gave us permission to have a fair amount of possessions, but because of our numerous errors, we caused them a lot of troubles.
According to Regragui, his side showed significant improvement in the second half.
We made every effort to score, but our efforts were unsuccessful. Congratulations to France.” We are going to be supporting them at this time.”
In the warm-up, Morocco’s first-choice centre defender Nayef Aguerd had a recurrence of a hamstring injury, while the team’s captain, Romain Saiss, exited the field with an injury in the first half.
He expressed his joy at the fact that his squad had produced difficulties for France.
“My guys have given all they had, and they have advanced as far as they possibly could. I had a strong desire to change the course of history, but in order to win a World Cup, you can’t rely on miracles; instead, you have to put in a lot of effort. And that is going to be the course of action that we take.”