Women's World Cup: Morocco, the last African hope

The Moroccans are playing their round of XNUMX football World Cup against France. The Atlas Lionesses are the last African team still in the competition.

African hopes of victory at the Women's World Cup are diminishing hour by hour. However, everything seemed to go well. With the exception of Zambia, all African teams managed to emerge from their respective pools and qualify for the round of 2. A stadium that did not really succeed for South Africans and Nigerians. South Africa lost 0-XNUMX to the Netherlands on Sunday, while Nigeria, who held England to a draw on Monday, forfeited the quarter-finals by losing the session shots on goal.

Only Morocco remains. In a few hours, the players of the kingdom will face France. A sort of remake of the men's World Cup, which had seen the Blues beat the brave Atlas Lions. France is the ultra favourite. But in a competition like this, anything can happen. And there is hope in Morocco.

Arrived second in their group, behind Colombia, the Moroccans may have lost heavily against Germany (6 goals to 0), they managed to win their two decisive confrontations against South Korea and Colombia. . Each time with only one small goal scored.

This is certainly the weak point of the Atlas Lionesses: a lack of offensive efficiency. Only Anissa Lahmari and Ibtissam Jraidi managed to find the nets. In addition to the rout against Germany, Morocco can however congratulate themselves on not having conceded a goal in their two other group matches.

Still, France is a big chunk. However, the Moroccans are lucky to have at the head of their selection a coach who knows the Blues very well. Reynald Pedros notably coached the women's Olympique Lyonnais before joining Morocco. But facing him, ironically, it is another coach that Moroccan fans know well who will try to thwart the plans of the Atlas Lionesses: Hervé Renard, coach of Les Bleues, is indeed the former coach of the Moroccan men's team.