Morocco shake up the world and who needs Ronaldo anyway?
World Cup Diaries: Day 17
World Cup Diaries: Day 17
Act One — Moroccan delight. Spanish despair. A seismic World Cup shock!
Morocco 0
Spain 0
Morocco win 3–0 on penalties
My favourite game of the tournament by far even in spite of the lack of goals, shots on target or even shots off target for that matter! The statistics will point to a dominant Spanish performance. The most important statistic of all will point to a seismic World Cup shock of a win for the North Africans of Morocco. Spain are my guilty footballing pleasure as they play the beautiful game beautifully, but jumping ahead to make an overall point: substitute Pablo Sarabia hit the outside of a Moroccan post with the last kick of the game in normal time before hitting the other post flush with the first Spanish penalty of the shoot-out and after 120 minutes Spain still couldn’t score, still wouldn’t score in fact, and Morocco have a forever piece of World Cup history and one of the greatest shocks at this showpiece tournament of all time.
Here’s how this incredibly tense and intriguing game played out and hopefully a flavour for why I adored a 0–0 draw so much:
1st half analysis
Quixotically pleasing, Morocco were dressed in the colours of Portugal and Spain the colours of Manchester City. It was almost an Anglo Portuguese game in the desert of Qatar, a mirage of the team still to play later tonight and the echoes of a Spanish team dressed in the colours of one of their most famous managers and a dyed in the wool Barcelona reason for the way Spain play the way they do and why I admire them so. 20 year old Pedri, that impish young man with the old fashioned football brain was their bright early light in this first half, forever moving within that central corridor of the field and always seeking that incisive progressive pass forward. I’ll skip ahead to say that Pedri had almost a “floating” role in the second half, often popping up at left and right defensive back, but I raise this here as the same applies to the game’s undoubted “Man of the Match”, Morocco’s number 4 Sofyan Amrabat. The 26 year old defensive midfielder was often the last man behind his two central defenders, carrying the ball and surging forward through the Spanish midfield. Biting into tackles, retaining possession and even floating forward to aid in attack, Amrabat was the best player on the park in a first half of very little in the way of goal scoring opportunities but as expected, a dominant ball controlling performance from Spain.
Achraf Hakimi (excellent again) blasted a free-kick narrowly high and wide on 15 minutes and Morocco’s early out ball for rapier like counter attacks fell to the impressive Sofiane Boufal. He capped an energetic first half with a dangerous cross that left the Spanish defensive line a little flat footed, leaving Nayef Aguerd to head wide when he should have scored. For all their dominance, ball retention and the visionary forward passes of Pedri, Spain produced just one effort on goal. Jordi Alba’s curling forward ball found Marco Asensio but with the angle narrowing, he shot powerfully into the side netting.
As the first half closed I scribbled in my notebook the following (a) Morocco have rattled Spain (b) Spain look dominant but with zero goal threat (c) The referee is a “Homer” as he’s given a string of favourable decisions in this half to Morocco and (d) The team dressed in the colours of Portugal are the home team. When they have the ball a shrill of excitement emanates around the stadium. When without the ball (as was common) loud jeers and whistles from an overwhelmingly partisan crowd cheering on the underdogs from Morocco. The whistles would grow louder the longer the game went.
2nd half analysis
Amid the background din of the constant whistles and jeers, there are again very little goal scoring chances to report. Marco Ascensio and Dani Olmo combine with a free-kick routine that sees Moroccan goalkeeper Yassine Bounou (known commonly as Bono) punch away Olmo’s fizzing shot and from around the hour mark onward the game devolved into a simple mode of attack versus defence. That Spain produced zero noteworthy goal scoring chances perhaps says more than I can say, so I found the individual battle between Spain’s Gavi and the aforementioned Achraf Hakimi fascinating until Gavi was substituted. Another Spanish substitute, Nico Williams, took up the mantle and impressed with his zestful energy and speed on the wing, with one particular run being curtailed forcefully and brilliantly by a sliding tackle from Morocco’s main man Sofyan Amrabat who was everywhere for his team. As was Pedri (left back/right back/left midfield) and it was to him that Spain were indebted when midway through the second half Morocco had an “overload” on the counter attack. Who chased down this counter attack before saving his team with a forceful sliding tackle?
Pedri.
As the game entered the usually pragmatic 30 minutes of extra-time I noted that the referee wasn’t favouring Morocco at all and was just, well, rubbish, and those whistles and jeers were growing louder and louder and louder.
Extra-time analysis
As is often the case, the substitutes with the fresher legs made the largest impact in truthfully the only passage of play whereby I expected a goal to be scored. Morocco substitute Walid Cheddira was a constant menace after his introduction. His pace was a new threat to a Spain defence unruffled and unrushed up to this point in the game but although caught offside when running through on goal (he shouldn’t have been), he ended the first period of extra-time by forcing Unai Simon in the Spanish goal to make arguably his first save of the game, with his legs, and out for a corner. He stood out too in the second period, receiving a pass after a crunching challenge from Morocco’s main man once more Sofyan Amrabat, before setting off on yet another defence stretching run.
Then, with arguably the last kick of the game, Spanish substitute Pablo Sarabia arrived late at the far post and with a beautiful volley back across goal from an incredibly acute angle, shaved the far post. Minutes later, and after Abdelhamid Sabiri had successfully scored the first of Morocco’s penalties in the shoot-out, Pablo Sarabia rapped the other post this time, flush in the face and away to safety, and still Spain couldn’t score this evening and remarkably, they never, ever did. Morocco goalkeeper Bono easily saved the tame penalties of Carlos Soler and captain Sergio Busquets, and Achraf Hakimi sealed their fate, and a monumental World Cup win for the ages with a cheeky “Panenka” style penalty.
So the players of “PlayStation Football” (patent pending) are out and The Atlas Lions are on their merry way to play Portugal on Saturday, and in the quarter-finals of the World Cup. Spain had 77% possession (77%!) and completed over 1,000 passes and three times more than their eventual victors. The only statistic that matters is the one in the history books. This was a win for the ages and arguably the greatest shock result in the World Cup in contemporary times.
Act Two — Who needs Cristiano Ronaldo?
PORTUGAL 6 (Ramos 17, 51 and 67, Pepe 33, Guerreiro 55, Leao 90+2)
SWITZERLAND 1 (Akanji 58)
I missed the pre-game hullabaloo over the omission of Cristiano Ronaldo from the Portugal starting XI and writing this near midnight after the game I have no interest in finding out whether he was rested, dropped or otherwise. As the unfeasibly handsome man who some would argue to be the greatest of all time took his seat on the substitutes bench amid the flashbulbs and hubbub of the world’s press, he then sat and watched his replacement Goncalo Ramos plunder a 50 minute World Cup hat-trick and by the time he was introduced as a substitute with 18 minutes to go, to raucous cheers and adulation from the majority of the stadium who continually and repetitively chanted his name in unison throughout the game, the team he captains were already leading 5–1 and had thoroughly demolished a dreadful Switzerland team into the bargain.
There’s an old expression here in England which I’m sure translates around the world, that of being “off the pace” or more commonly used in football here, “a yard off the pace”, meaning that a player or indeed an entire team are out of sync with the game rotating around them. A yard too slow to a tackle, a yard too slow in their thinking or movement and just generally a yard or a second behind the flow of the game. This evening, Switzerland weren’t just a yard off the pace but arguably three or four as even without Cristiano Ronaldo, Portugal ripped them to pieces time and time again. The Swiss central striker Breel Embolo tried to exert an early physicality to the game but as the clock ticked toward a quarter of an hour’s play his team was already sinking under the weight of the swift and precise ball movement all around them and it was clear that Switzerland being Switzerland, they’d qualified for the knock-outs of a major tournament again but they always meet their match. Tonight, they not only met their match but watched them run rings around them.
Benfica striker and hat-trick hero Goncalo Ramos snagged the first of his three goals on 17 minutes. A non threatening throw-in reached the very impressive (tonight) Joao Felix and with a simple incisive ball to Ramos cut out four statuesque Swiss defenders. At a tight, acute angle, the 21 year old simply took his goal scoring chance early, smashing a left foot piledriver into the near post top corner of the Switzerland goal and past a startled Yann Sommer in the Swiss goal. He shouldn’t have been beaten at his near post but the defender who was that crucial yard off the pace was Fabian Schar as he never tried any sort of tackle or intervention whilst Ramos blew the game wide open. Schar wasn’t alone in his sloppiness. 15 minutes later, Portugal’s veteran and stand in captain for the evening Pepe rose between Schar and Manuel Akanji to power home a header from a corner and bluntly put, Switzerland had simply gifted two unchallenged goals to go in at half-time with their tails between their legs, thoroughly outplayed all across the field, and a 2–0 deficit they were never going to recover from.
Four minutes into the second half this was confirmed and again a litany of errors and a lack of any real footballing desire was starkly evident as the hat-trick hero Goncalo Ramos grabbed his second goal of the evening. The lead up to the goal was firstly a tenacious challenge from Otavio on the much bigger Breel Embolo that saw the smaller man win the duel for the ball before Bruno Fernandes ran unchallenged at the heart of the Swiss defence. A further phase of play ensued, with Portugal full-back Diogo Dalot easily outwitting his marker, fizzing a low cross into the Switzerland six yard area and Ramos had the nous and desire to meet the cross ahead of a static Swiss defence, and his goal “nutmegged” the defenceless Yann Sommer in the Swiss goal.
Four minutes later it would get worse for a Switzerland team heartily embarrassed by a quite incredible team goal. From Otavio’s cheeky yet skilful backheel on the touchline, teammates Joao Felix and Bruno Fernandes exchanged one touch passes, at pace, before the overlapping Raphael Guerreiro crashed an unstoppable shot into the roof of the Swiss net. Portugal’s 4th goal minutes later came from a huge goal kick from their goalkeeper Diogo Costa and after a mid-air tussle for the loose ball, Bernado Silva mis controlled a fortuitous pass into the path of Joao Felix who in turn cycled the ball to Ramos, and the hat-trick hero simply “dinked” a gentle shot over the advancing Jann Sommer and into his empty net, and an empty net as cavernous as the emptiness of a missing defence in front of him.
If that chamber of footballing horrors wasn’t enough, watch Portugal’s sixth and final goal again and you’ll clearly see the two/three yards off the pace throughout the admittedly badly beaten Swiss team, but the Portuguese team cycle the ball brilliantly across their defence, through the transitions into midfield before goal scorer Rafael Leao impudently curls an absolute beauty of a goal past a statuesque Jann Sommer. It’s a wonderful team goal and another vying for the title of “Goal of the Tournament” but it aptly demonstrated the gulf in quality as a team without a certain Cristiano Ronaldo scored six, and they now have their sights set firmly on today’s history makers from Morocco in the quarter-finals on Saturday night.
Thanks for reading. In addition to the delights that can be found within the cave of wonders that is my archives, I’m penning a day to day diary of the World Cup, and here are days 14 through 16:
Brazil dance into the quarter-finals as Croatia break Japanese hearts
World Cup Diaries: Day 16.medium.com
Mbappe and Bellingham with the world at their feet
World Cup Diaries: Day 15.medium.com
Vamos Messi! Netherlands next after they expose the naivety of the USA
World Cup Diaries: Day 14medium.com