The "Atlas Lions," Morocco's nickname, were standouts four years ago in Qatar, becoming the first African and Arab nation to reach the FIFA World Cup semi-finals.
Its growing stature as a high-energy and ambitious football team in the world was evidenced in the Confederation of African Football (CAF) qualification matches (for 2026) when it won its home and away games.
Eritrea, one of the teams in the qualifying group, pulled out because of a suspicion that the players would seek political asylum in the course of the qualification process.
As a consequence, the group was left with five teams in Morocco, Zambia, Congo, Tanzania, Niger, and the semi-finalist at Doha outplayed opponents to hold the No.1 position in the group leaderboard and march into the finals rostered in North and Central America.
Morocco was a ``great story'' of Doha. It began by sharing points with Croatia, cracked open the defence of Belgium to win 2-0, beat Canada 2-1, drew with Spain without goals scored for or against and stunned Cristiano Ronaldo's Portugal 1-0 in the quarter-final before going to France 0-2. However, it held the upper hand on the attacking count.
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Morocco will hold the centre stage in the coming years, holding many international competitions leading to the 2030 World Cup that it will host along with Spain and Portugal. The country is building the $ 500 million Grand Stadium Hassan II at Casablanca with a capacity of 1,15,000, but the fans are not sure if the final would be held at home.
Morocco has created stars across the field in defence and attack, and easily its best-known player is the Paris Saint-Germain right back Achraf Hakimi. He has built a reputation for good runs and crossing. He was in the pitch, during the qualifiers for 540 minutes over eight matches.
Defender Aguerd Nayef was on the field for 630 minutes, midfielders Amrabat Sofyan for 528 minutes, Brahim Diaz for 503 minutes and goalkeeper Yassine Bounou for a full 720 minutes.
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Morocco scored 22 goals in the World Cup qualifiers and in the recent friendlies, it beat Burundi 5-0, Paraguay 2-1 and drew with Ecuador 1-1. Morocco was also declared the winner of the Africa Cup of Nations title, though it lost the final 0-1 to Senegal at Rabat. But the CAF awarded the final to Morocco (a walkover 3-0 victory for the host), punishing Senegal for walking off the field for 15 minutes after Morocco was awarded a penalty. Morocco missed the penalty, but it appealed against its opponent, leaving the field without the permission of the referee.
The Atlas Lions have lost just three matches since January 2024, which says the confidence level of the team after a breakthrough at Doha. It plays Madagascar and Norway in warm-up matches before running into Brazil on June 14 in its opening World Cup match. This match will be one of the most-watched ones in the early stage of the action in the Americas.
Thereafter, it will play Scotland and Haiti. In the 1998 World Cup match, Brazil beat Morocco 3-0, but in a friendly in March 2023, Morocco showed its class, winning 2-1. It became only the second African team to bring down Brazil. In their only match, it has played against Scotland in the World Cup match in France in 1998, the African nation won 3-0. It will be the first International match between Morocco and Haiti.
Currently, Morocco is ranked No.8 in the FIFA rankings, a clear indication of its ambition to be among the top and use football to present itself to the world.
Ivory Coast
Like many African teams, the Ivory Coast - aka The Elephants - had an unbeaten run in the African qualifying rounds, scoring 25 goals, the highest among the 53 African teams in the qualifiers.
It won eight and drew two.
It plays Ecuador, Germany and Curacao in the first round group matches at Philadelphia and Toronto and should be fancying its chances to enter the round of 32. Its Manager Emerse Fae knows the players well. He was part of the national team under-23 set up before taking charge of the national team in February 2024, after being assistant and caretaker manager.
He is one of the youngest, at 42, who will be controlling the team from the dugout. In all, he has guided the team in 31 outings. He began his professional player-career with FC Nahtes and then moved to Reading, Nice, before bidding adieu in 2012 and quickly taking up the dugout job with the youth team of OGC Nice. He generally goes for the 4-3-3 attacking style of play and has a decent 21-win record with five draws and losses each. His CV, of course, has a 41-match appearance for the Ivory Coast as a midfielder. He also represented the French youth team.
Fae has a long career ahead of him as a Manager, but he would be keen and eager to motivate the present squad to achieve a lot in the coming months in front of a world audience. Leading to the World Cup, he must be happy with the 4-0 win against a tenacious South Korean side and 1-0 win against Scotland. It lost, though, to Egypt in the Africa Nations Cup semifinal 2-3.
The 'Elephants' trust in the leadership of Franck Kessie and a number of Europe-based players, one of them is Amad Diallo of Manchester United.
Kessie has been capped 92 times in which he has scored 14 goals. He has been part of three World Cup qualifiers, thirteen seasons of FIFA friendlies and as many club seasons, five in Italy and once for Barcelona.
Ivory Coast has featured in Germany 2006, 2010 South Africa and 2014 Brazil. It has not gone past the group stage. It has the talent to progress, but it must make its own luck.