Morocco depart Qatar disillusioned however crammed with satisfaction at having written their names into the historical past books by changing into the primary African crew to succeed in the World Cup semi-finals, their coach Walid Regragui stated.
Morocco have been crushed 2-0 by France on Wednesday and can go right into a playoff for third place with Croatia whereas the French will face Argentina within the ultimate.
“We realise that we made an incredible achievement already,” Regragui informed reporters. “We all know that the media, social media, and on TV, we noticed the images, and we noticed that everybody was pleased with us in our nation.
“We’re disillusioned for the Moroccan folks tonight, we needed to maintain the dream alive. However we’re happy with what we have achieved. We felt that we might have even gone even additional however these small particulars assist actual champions, which we noticed tonight, in fact.”
Regragui informed his gamers he was pleased with them.
“His Majesty was additionally proud, the Moroccan folks have been proud,” he stated. “I feel the world as an entire is pleased with this Moroccan crew as a result of we present nice want. We work arduous, and we performed sincere, hard-working soccer.
“I feel we have given an excellent picture of Morocco and an excellent picture of African soccer and that was additionally vital for us, as a result of we have been representing our nation and our continent.”
Morocco, who got here into the match with the perfect defensive document within the match, conceded from France’s first critical assault 5 minutes into the sport.
“Right this moment, if I’ve regrets, it is the beginning of the sport,” Regragui added. “We began fairly poorly and we conceded a purpose in a short time and that made the distinction.
“They allowed us to have various possession, however we made too many errors to trigger them issues.”
Regragui thought his crew improved within the second half.
“We created quite a lot of alternatives, however sadly we weren’t medical within the final third,” he stated.
“We tried all the pieces to get a purpose however congratulations to France. We will assist them now.”
Morocco misplaced first-choice centre again Nayef Aguerd within the warm-up after a recurrence of a hamstring damage and their captain Romain Saiss left the pitch injured within the first half.
“Regardless of the entire accidents that we had, the tiredness, we pulled out all of the stops and we gave all the pieces,” Regragui stated.
He was happy that his crew had brought on France issues.
“However I feel bodily, we got here up quick tonight. We had too many gamers who have been 60% or 70%, and have been for a number of video games now,” Regragui stated.
“My gamers gave all the pieces and so they’ve gone so far as they may. I actually needed to rewrite the historical past books, however you possibly can’t win a World Cup with miracles, it is advisable to do it via arduous work. And that is what we will do.”