The elimination of Morocco against France (2-0) in the quarter-finals of the World Cup has sparked numerous criticisms in the international press. Several media outlets have mainly lamented the very cautious approach chosen by Mohamed Ouahbi and the lack of offensive ambition from the Atlas Lions, who rarely managed to threaten the French defense.<\/p>\n
On the ESPN FC set, former Scottish international Craig Burley was particularly harsh. After also criticizing Paraguay in the previous round, the analyst stated that both teams had made “pathetic attempts” to eliminate the Blues. “From a Moroccan perspective, playing like that, I\u2019m glad they are out,” he notably remarked, reproaching Morocco for approaching this match without taking enough risks.<\/p>\n
The assessment is also tough in the French press. So Foot<\/em> headlines that “Morocco fell without its ideas” and describes a team that was “too timid,” which had renounced its more enterprising face shown against Brazil, the Netherlands, and Canada. The media believes that the Atlas Lions were dominated and hardly ever managed to settle in the French half of the field.<\/p>\n Abroad, the Reuters<\/em> agency highlights the choice of a cautious 4-5-1 system and considers that Morocco offered very little offensive danger, with only one shot on target at the end of the match. The Guardian<\/em> notes that the Moroccans had more possession but failed to truly put France in difficulty, while the Wall Street Journal<\/em> emphasizes the gap between the 21 French shots and the four Moroccan attempts.<\/p>\n The Swiss daily Blick<\/em>, cited by Courrier international<\/em>, believes that France largely dominated the match and “made short work” of Morocco. A particularly strong phrase that illustrates the general sentiment expressed by several observers: the Atlas Lions primarily sought to contain the French attackers, without offering enough alternatives to hope to turn the match around.<\/p>\n This elimination, however, does not undermine Morocco’s overall journey. Morocco notably eliminated the Netherlands before outclassing Canada in the round of 16. But against France, the choice to wait, the absence of ambitious pressing, and the lack of offensive presence left a feeling of frustration among both supporters and many international observers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The elimination of Morocco against France (2-0) in the quarter-finals of the World Cup has sparked numerous criticisms in the international press. Several media outlets have mainly lamented the very cautious approach chosen by Mohamed Ouahbi and the lack of offensive ambition from the Atlas Lions, who rarely managed to threaten the French defense. On<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":499956,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[691,1],"tags":[31483,31484,31485],"maw_player":[],"class_list":["post-499955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world-cup","category-non-classifiee","tag-atlas-lions","tag-fifa-world-cup-2026-2","tag-morocco-national-team"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mountakhab.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mountakhab.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mountakhab.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mountakhab.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mountakhab.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499955"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mountakhab.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":499961,"href":"https:\/\/mountakhab.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499955\/revisions\/499961"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mountakhab.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mountakhab.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mountakhab.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mountakhab.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499955"},{"taxonomy":"maw_player","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mountakhab.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/maw_player?post=499955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}