FIFA World Cup 2022: Morocco in seventh heaven

Morocco players celebrate a goal v Portugal last week. Pic/getty images

Morocco coach Walid Regragui cannot stop praising his team. On the eve of Saturday's third-place match against Croatia, Regragui insisted that winning or losing did not matter. "I realise that it is important to finish third rather than fourth, but my takeaway from all this is that we did not reach the final. We wanted to play that final on Sunday, not [the third-place match] tomorrow. I told my players this is our seventh World Cup game. In the beginning, if you told any Morocco fan that we would be playing our seventh game on December 17, they would be proud. Morocco played six World Cup games in around 20 years or so and now we have already played six in one tournament, in a single month. This is priceless. It's like we have played two World Cups. But still to reach the very highest level, to win a World Cup, we still have some work to do, though we are not very far away," Regragui said at the match-eve press conference at the Main Media Centre on Friday.

Walid Regragui

Giant-killers Morocco's mercurial run was halted in the semi-finals by France, but not before they gave a fine account of themselves by beating teams like Belgium, Spain and Portugal before that. However, when they met Luka Modric's Croatia in the group stages, they had a tough time and the match ended 0-0. That's the reason Regragui did not prefer to talk down his opponents this time. "We always knew that Croatia were among the best teams here. Many thought that Croatia [who finished second in the 2018 edition in Russia] were approaching the end of their cycle. In our group match, there was a lot of hesitation as it was the first game for both of us. Now, we have both reached the semi-finals, so this one will be a great game," added Regragui, going on to praise his gritty opposition skipper, Modric, 37, who will be playing his last World Cup fixture. "Modric is a warrior. He is highly competitive and will be keen to finish his World Cup in style, so we should be wary of him. Hats off to him though, he's 37, is a Ballon d'Or winner and has been phenomenal throughout this tournament," Regragui signed off.

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