Regragui happy with Morocco’s campaign despite becoming the fourth

Morocco became the first African team to be one of the top four teams in the World Cup.  the historic achievement led to head coach Walid Regragui claiming that his team can indeed compete with the best in football.

Croatia managed to beat Morocco 2-1 in a nail-biting third-place play-off between World Cup’s two dark horses as Josko Gvardiol and Mislav Orsic scored for the Chequered Ones while

scored Morocco’s only goal.

However, despite the loss and the subsequent fourth place, Regragui was happy with Morocco’s performances over the course of the tournament.

"Tomorrow morning we will take stock, and realise we all made a fantastic achievement here,"

Regragui told reporters following the game.

"We played Croatia twice, one of the top three teams in the world. We played against Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium and Canada, that’s wonderful.

"We have an objective of winning the World Cup one day. Morocco showed we can go toe to toe with these teams. We are now one of the top four teams in the world."

Regragui was then asked about whether he would change anything about their World Cup performances, which he replied:

"Honestly I would say nothing.

"We had 0.01 per cent chance of winning the tournament at the outset. We managed to get to the last four.

"We played some of the powerhouses of football. If you told me we'd get this far, number four in the world, I'd have accepted that straight away.

"We deserve respect. They fought until the end, showed hard graft. That’s football, some nations are stronger than us. France were, Croatia were tonight, but only slightly stronger.

"For 2026, if I'm still in charge, I'll have more experience and maybe things will change, and in 2026 we will realise the achievement we've made in 2022."

The third-place play-off as well as Morocco’s semi-final clash against France were both controversial in terms of refereeing decisions, with Morocco star

even confronting FIFa president Infantino after tonight’s match, but Regragui was focused on their performances rather than refereeing decisions.

"When you lose you always get disappointed, upset,"

Regragui said. 

"My players are great competitors, I don’t think there was a lack of respect.

"We sometimes overreact at the end of games, it happens. We just weren’t at the level we've set.

"We focus on what we were lacking. We can't hide behind the refereeing, that’s not the Moroccan way. We let the association deal with any official issues."

Follow 

 for the