THUMAMA, Qatar — From the Moroccan national anthem that boomed across Al Thumama Stadium at the outset, through a Moroccan goal on 45+2 minutes before it got disallowed, the noise that traveled from across the Arab world to the first Arab World Cup seemed to spend Sunday afternoon waiting to thunder for real.
Morocco seizes its World Cup moment with a loud upset of Belgium
Oh, it thundered all right, its great sound burrowing into the hair follicles and driving up the bumps at just about the time a 25-year-old substitute who used to play for the German under-21 team pelted a free kick from left of the area in the 73rd minute. Abdelhamid Sabiri’s kick curled leftward past all the gathered players and then plunged into the front edge of the goal beside one of the world’s best goalkeepers, and then, goodness.
Yet then, about 20 minutes on, it managed to surpass its mighty self as Morocco’s stunning 2-0 win over much-favored Belgium, FIFA’s No. 2-ranked team in the world, got clinched. That happened two minutes into stoppage time. With porousness in the back, Hakim Ziyech found a loose ball, headed to the right and crossed back to Zakaria Aboukhlal in the box.
When Aboukhlal, yet another substitute, struck that thing into the near right top corner past Thibaut Courtois, the fans hugged and the players prostrated to give thanks to God and the noise mushroomed, greeting the kind of major breakthrough for which African teams have yearned here.
It vaulted the Moroccans to the top of rugged Group F with four points ahead of Belgium’s three, with Croatia-Canada pending. It led to Moroccan players strewn around the pitch, some in exhaustion others in sujud, after the whistle, their efforts rewarded. And it bolstered the notion that maybe this great generation of Belgium, quarterfinalists in 2014 and semifinalists in 2018, has slid past its prime chances.
Whatever it was, it was a place to be. It was a case of a team that just replaced its manager three months ago, seeing off Vahid Halilhodzic in favor of Walid Regragui, and which had to replace its goalkeeper just after the anthems, with Yassine Bounou citing eye problems according to the BBC, grabbing itself a moment. And it grabbed partly through the substitutions of the former Morocco defender Regragui, a 47-year-old new manager who sent on Sabiri on 68 minutes and Aboukhlal on 73.
That helped lift a team whose defense seldom is an issue and certainly hasn’t been here, allowing zero goals thus far against Croatia and Belgium with the Paris Saint-German bulwark Achraf Hakimi as its leader. The Belgians proved pretty much toothless, with little to speak of in the way of threats against backup goalkeeper Munir Mohamedi, who did just fine all told while his teammates wound up with an extra threat to discard. It came at the close of the first half, also from a set piece.
Ziyech’s free kick from the left also went in and went by Courtois, glancing off the right side of his rib cage because he could not track its path. He could not track its path because Hakimi and Romain Saiss bursted into his sightline, with Saiss having gone offside by an arm beforehand even as the ball appeared to sail just over his head without touching even a hair.
The Moroccans made a great ton of noise upon that, but a VAR review nullified the goal, though that turned out okay. Their lungs would get further opportunities.
Source: WP
