Humility, sacrifice, work. This is Walid Regragui’s recipe for qualifying the national team for the quarter-finals of the 2022 World Cup. A historic feat whose victim was Spain, this Tuesday, December 6, which will now coincide with “the most beautiful day of my life in football” savored Boufal after the match.
The conference that followed the effusions did nothing to feed the coach’s ego. The time was rather for sharing and gathering. “Today, we saw that all my players are Moroccan, whether they were born in Morocco or elsewhere. Everyone fought in the same way on the pitch,” said Walid Regragui.
And to salute the performance of its players. In this case “my midfielder and the attackers who did an extraordinary job” said the national coach, highlighting in particular the solid performance of Azzedine Ounahi.
“He’s an extraordinary player, who still has a lot of room for improvement. Today, he raised his level again, like many of his other teammates. If he continues, it will be a surprise at the World Cup and he will help Morocco” he added.
Although he was less to his advantage against Spain, Hakim Ziyech who scored his penalty, was also entitled to honors from his coach. “I love Hakim Ziyech, the Moroccan people demanded him, he had something to give them. I don’t even know why he had problems before. He is a player to whom we must give responsibility and love”.
“We agreed not to have possession”
Spain had the ball 75% of the time. Morocco therefore ran a lot to recover it. An expected scenario. “No one managed to take the ball from them, we accepted it and organized ourselves well to hinder Gavi, Busquets and Pedri. We just had to know how long we were going to last.” explained Mr. Regragui.
Despite Spanish pressure, the Atlas Lions held on to make way for Bouno’s Show during the penalty shootout. “He is one of the best goalkeepers in the world” according to the coach who was full of praise for the Sevillian, who knew how to keep his feet on the ground after his feat, like his coach.
“Penalties are a little bit of intuition, a little bit of luck. We won, that’s the most important thing. Hats off to the whole team, they did the job, it was incredible” rejoiced Yassine Bounou a few minutes earlier at the microphone of beIN Sports.
In the pure tradition of coaches who have ambition, Walid Regragui does not have time to savor. He now plans on the quarter-final which awaits him this Saturday, December 10, at 4 p.m. against Portugal. “We don’t know where we’re going to stop,” he said with a major handicap: injuries.
“We are lacking in freshness and we need depth in the bench” certainly thinking of his pivot in central defense, Saïss-Aguerd, keystone of Moroccan performances but whose outings for muscle problems are worrying.
The national coach will certainly have to be very careful with certain players in the days to come. To this end, he will be able to count on a medical staff “without whom we would not be here” he assured. Without forgetting “the material and equipment managers, the logistics managers, the people at the FRMF. The physical trainers, the video analysts. I would like to say thank you and congratulations to them all,” he concludes.