Goals from Soufiane Rahimi, Ilias Akhomach, Achraf Hakimi and Mehdi Maouhoub earned Morocco a comfortable 4-0 win against USA in the men’s quarter-finals of the Paris Olympics on Friday.
The Moroccans have now reached a first-ever semi-final in the football event at the Olympics.
Rahimi earned the penalty off a foul by Nathan Harriel in the 29th minute. As he stepped up to take a penalty, U.S. goalkeeper Patrick Schulte guessed correctly, diving to his left, but the pace and precision of the Moroccan’s strike was enough for the score.
Morocco kept up the pressure after intermission as Akhomach, Hakimi and Maouhoub added the finishing touches on a match their side had well in hand.
The Americans’ best chance might have come in the 9th minute when Paxten Aaronson couldn’t redirect a fast-moving cross at close range.
And in the 59th minute, Miles Robinson couldn’t quite wrap his foot around a pass from about 10 yards out.
Morocco ended up controlling 57% of possession and taking eight of the match’s 11 corner kicks,
2 Comments
Second consecutive semi final in an international tournament. Morocco is doing something right. Can the NFF humble self and go to Morocco and findout how they are doing it. Two heads are better than one.
The two heads of Pinnick and Gusau have so far failed to be better than the head of Morrocan FA president Fouzi Lekjaa.
The Pareto 80:20 rule simply tells us that 80% of problems sometimes require 20% of solutions.
The 20% of things we need to do away with in nigerian football to solve 80% of our problems is 1. The clueless NFF leadership. 2.The 1994 squad cult 3.Incompetent coaches and baises in the selection of players for our national teams.
Morocco has teams like RS Berkane, Wydad, Raja, FAR Rabat who have all won CAF competitions with commendable regularity very recently. They also have a homebased squad that has won CHAN back-to-back, yet at least 50% of their squads to major global tournaments are comprised of FOREIGN-BORN players with proper globally compliant football education.
The coaches of these teams too are not some cultists who have gathered dust sitting in their homes for decades doing nothing, yet laying claims to national team coaching jobs as if it’s their family chieftaincy titles.
This current U23 coach of Morocco won the CAF Confederations Cup with RC Berkane 2 or 3 seasons ago and has been coaching for almost 15 years non-stop, despite being an ex-international too. Same thing with Walid Regragui who was actively coaching and has won both the league and the CAF champs league with Wydad.
Morrocco’s successes are not accidental, they are not based on just one phantom Moroccan version of the “Nigerian spirit”. It’s simply from doing the basic fundamental things right