Unfortunately for them, their giant-killing run—they beat the Golden Generation of Belgium, tiki-taka specialists Spain and Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal previously—ended with a 0-2 defeat to reigning world champions France at the Al Bayt Stadium on Wednesday night.

Walid Regragui

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Coach Regragui however, insisted that Morocco have proved to the world that the size of a nation does not matter on football’s biggest stage. “My team has shown the desire here, they played hard and presented a good image of Morocco and the African world. We represented our nation and the continent well. We gave our maximum out there, but you cannot win a World Cup with miracles,” said Regragui at the post-match press conference, adding that his team will now back France in the summit clash against Argentina on Sunday. 

“We congratulate France, and will support them in the final,” he said.

Before that though, Morocco play the third-place match against Luka Modric’s powerful Croatians on Saturday. But the third-place match at a World Cup often does not arise too much interest as it is considered to be a battle of the losers. And Regragui too did not seem very motivated to do well against the Croatians on Saturday. However, his team also have a host of injuries, which may be one of the reasons he said that he will try out his bench strength on Saturday. “I will give opportunities to those who have not yet participated in the tournament. We will try to clinch the third place. The important thing however is that we 
have already proved that football in Morocco is not too far away from the top level,” he concluded.

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