Emirates News Agency – Morocco’s ambition challenges Croatia’s experience for World Cup bronze

By / Ahmed Zahran ..

ABU DHABI, 16th December / WAM / From where the Morocco national team started their historic milestone in the 2022 World Cup, the team will have to end their epic career in this edition of the World Cup as they finish their campaign in the tournament against the same team that started this journey.
Tomorrow, Saturday, the Morocco national football team will meet the Croatian national team in the challenge for third place, which will be a repeat of the first match for each of the two teams in the current edition of the World Cup.
The Morocco national team started their participation in the current edition with a very important negative draw with the Croatia national team in the group stage, and this match was an inspiring kick-off for the Morocco national team in their competitive career, as the Croatian national team ranked second in the last World Cup (World Cup 2018).
In fact, the Moroccan national team then deservedly passed their group with two consecutive victories against Belgium 2-0 and Canada 2-1, then overcame two huge obstacles, Spain in the round of 16 and Portugal in the quarter-finals, to write history by reaching the semi-finals, having become the first Arab and African team to achieve this.
And with the Moroccan national side losing to their French counterparts in the semi-finals, the next focus for the squad is to compete for third place in the tournament via tomorrow’s upcoming match-up against their Croatian counterparts.
The two teams realize that tomorrow’s match is completely different from the previous confrontation between them at the beginning of the tournament, as tomorrow’s match must win for one of the two sides, both during the match and in the penalty shootout.
However, both teams can approach with extreme caution without taking any offensive risks with the match, in light of their eagerness to take third place.
Despite this, the Moroccan national team tries to settle the match without reaching the penalty shootout, in which the two teams distinguish themselves, given that the Moroccan team passed the second round in a penalty shootout against Spain, and the Croatian team passed the second round on penalties alike against Japan, then the quarter-finals against Brazil before losing to Argentina 0-0.3 in semi-final regular time.
The Croatian team sees in the conquest of this position a compensation for not being able to reach the final and compete for the title in the current version after taking second place in the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
On the other hand, the Moroccan national team is also looking forward to crowning their historic achievement in the current version with a historic finish, because tomorrow’s third place will make them the first team outside Europe and South America to achieve this position throughout the history of the World Cup.
And the US team was the only one to get this position outside the two continents, in the first version of the 1930 World Cup in Uruguay, but this was due to its results in the tournament as a whole, since that version did not see the game for the third place.
And unlike their first-round match in the current version, the Croatian and Moroccan teams have never met before at the World Cup, so tomorrow’s match will be only the second between them in World Cup history.