Morocco’s hope of clinching the first-ever bronze medal for Africa vanished on Saturday as the Atlas Lions lost 2-1 to Croatia in the Third-Place match.
Zlatko Dalic’s side were runners-up to France four years ago and confirmed their status as one of the elite footballing nations with another third-place finish to go alongside that secured in their competition debut in 1998.
In a frantic opening, Josko Gvardiol gave Croatia the lead on seven minutes with a superb diving header but Achraf Dari levelled just two minutes later by nodding home from close range.
Mislav Orsic curled in a sumptuous second for Croatia via the post three minutes before half-time and struck a thumping, deflected drive into the side-netting after the break.
The second half could not match the energy of a thrilling opening period and Morocco failed to find an equaliser as a fruitful campaign ended in back-to-back defeats.
7 Comments
In 2026, the SUPER EAGLES will TAKE it UP from where the ARAB NATION LEFT OFF and become the FIRST REAL AFRICAN TEAM to reach out the SEMIS….
Tall dream bearing in mind maladministration by NFF which is the bane of Nigeria football
Stop heaping all the blames on NFF. You don’t have the players with the talent and determination in the current SE to conquer Africa let alone make any impact at the world stage.
Are you kidding me? Like, are you serious right now? I’m thought any coach could win Afcon in 2 weeks with our current players. So, you’re indirectly saying that Rohr was exceeding expectations with these set of players, making qualifiers look easy. Yet NFF fires him at the eve of a major tournament.
We have the talents but the players and NFF are birds of same feathers due to their incompetencies most especially NFF. But to say Naija is not talented is a big lie.
Amen O!
Thank you @DEO
In FOOTBALL and in LIFE GENERALLY EVERYTHING is POSSIBLE…