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Morocco Makes More Women's World Cup History, Reaching Knockout Rounds

Players of Morocco celebrate their win after the FIFA Women's World Cup 2023 soccer match between Morocco and Colombia at Perth Rectangular Stadium in Perth, Australia, 03 August 2023. EPA/RICHARD WAINWRIGHT
Players of Morocco celebrate their win after the FIFA Women's World Cup 2023 soccer match between Morocco and Colombia at Perth Rectangular Stadium in Perth, Australia, 03 August 2023. EPA/RICHARD WAINWRIGHT
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Morocco Makes More Women's World Cup History, Reaching Knockout Rounds

Players of Morocco celebrate their win after the FIFA Women's World Cup 2023 soccer match between Morocco and Colombia at Perth Rectangular Stadium in Perth, Australia, 03 August 2023. EPA/RICHARD WAINWRIGHT
Players of Morocco celebrate their win after the FIFA Women's World Cup 2023 soccer match between Morocco and Colombia at Perth Rectangular Stadium in Perth, Australia, 03 August 2023. EPA/RICHARD WAINWRIGHT

After playing their part by edging Colombia 1-0, Morocco's Atlas Lionesses huddled on the pitch in Perth to follow the end of the Germany-South Korea group-stage finale at the Women's World Cup and hope it remained tied.
“We had the phone and we started praying. We were praying while we were watching the game,” said midfielder Anissa Lahmari, who scored Morocco’s winning goal in first-half stoppage time on Thursday. “Afterwards it was just a complete explosion of joy.”
Cue celebrations, both in Morocco and other parts of the Arab world.
In one of the most unexpected outcomes in the last days of the group stage, Morocco advanced to the knockout round in second place behind Colombia while No. 2-ranked Germany failed to advance for the first time at the tournament.
Morocco is the first Arab or North African nation to qualify for the Women’s World Cup and now the first to advance beyond the group stage. That’s something none of the other seven tournament newcomers managed to do.
And it all started with a thumping 6-0 loss to Germany. While the Moroccans recovered to win their next two games, Germany lost 2-1 to Colombia and then was held 1-1 by South Korea when it needed a win in Brisbane to avoid elimination.
“When we had won the match, the most stressful thing was the other match,” The Associated Press quoted Morocco coach Reynald Pedros as saying.
The last two group games started at the same time on opposite sides of the Australian continent but stoppage time in Brisbane lasted longer.
“We waited, and then the good news arrived. It was incredible,” Pedros said.
If Morocco’s qualification for the Women’s World Cup inspired a generation, this run to the knockout stage will cement a legacy for the Atlas Lionesses.
The win over South Korea last weekend was historic for the team, for Ibtissam Jraïdi scoring the Morocco's first World Cup goal, and for another significant milestone — defender Nouhaila Benzina became the first player to wear a Hijab in a World Cup game at the senior level.
“After the first match of the tournament, I think 98% of people thought it was over, apart from us,” Pedros said. “We thought we could do something, because football is magic.
“We know that emotions and hard work can lead to good things. If we are at the next stage, it’s because we deserve it, for all the hard work."
The game against Colombia was an even contest right through the first half until Jraidi was fouled in the penalty area in the dying seconds before the break. Ghizlane Chebbak's penalty attempt was saved, but Lahmari swooped on the rebound to put her team ahead of Colombia — and, just as importantly, ahead of Germany in the standings.
Colombia had its best scoring chance in the 59th minute, when 18-year-old Linda Caicedo served a ball to the far post, which Daniela Montoya one-timed to the left of goalkeeper Khadija Er-Rmichi. The Moroccan 'keeper made a reflex kick save, blocking the ball with just the front edge of her right cleat.
In the 69th, Caicedo, after a long run, stopped and leaned on the field barrier, reaching down to her left ankle and foot. She appeared hobbled for several minutes but stayed in the match.
WHY IT MATTERS
Moroccan soccer fans have had plenty of celebrate with their national teams at the most recent World Cups. The Atlas Lionesses created history just by qualifying, and then just by scoring their first win. Beating Colombia to knock Germany out of the tournament was another level.
Morocco’s men’s team also made World Cup history last year. In the 2022 men’s World Cup, the Atlas Lions advanced to the round of 16 for the first time since 1986 and became the first African or Arab nation to reach a World Cup semifinal.
Colombia wins its group for the first time in team history and is in the knockout rounds for the first time since 2015.
Morocco, as the Group H runner-up, will play Group F winner France in Adelaide on Tuesday. Colombia will play Group F runner-up Jamaica the same day in Melbourne.

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Pre-season Friendlies in the US are a Harbinger of Football’s Grueling Future

Part of the friendly match between Arsenal and Manchester United (The AP)
Part of the friendly match between Arsenal and Manchester United (The AP)
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Pre-season Friendlies in the US are a Harbinger of Football’s Grueling Future

Part of the friendly match between Arsenal and Manchester United (The AP)
Part of the friendly match between Arsenal and Manchester United (The AP)

On a sunny summer Saturday in Inglewood, California, two of the Premier League’s most historic rivals met on the pitch, and the biggest news had nothing to do with the score of the game. Rather, two key injuries for Manchester United (Rasmus Højlund and new addition Leny Yoro) drew headlines after Arsenal’s 2-1 win in which the London side’s two key Gabriels (Jesus and Martinelli) scored.

It is just pre-season. In all likelihood, the injuries were the biggest thing to come out of a game between these opponents in this location. But it may not be that way for much longer. Soon, games like this week’s Liverpool-Arsenal clash in Philadelphia or Chelsea-Man City in Columbus could actually have an impact on the league table.

The reason why lies just nine miles away from where Milan and Man City kicked off their own transatlantic exhibition in New York City on Saturday: the southern district court of New York in Manhattan, where in 2019 the event promoter Relevent Sports filed suit against US Soccer and Fifa. Relevent had initially brought the suit because US Soccer denied the company licence to stage an Ecuadorian league match in the US. Earlier this year, Fifa reached a deal with Relevent to remove itself from the suit, crucially promising to change its statute as part of the deal while admitting no wrongdoing.
Fifa has not yet removed that statute, but has promised to before the end of this year and ordered a review of the rule at its most recent Congress in May. In just about any reading, the removal of the rule is all but inevitable, with Premier League games on US soil surely soon to follow – whether sanctioned league matches or as part of an extra or rebranded cup competition.

With some time probably remaining before those games actually start happening, this summer’s US tour games now exist in a strange middle ground: no longer some harmless fun before a grueling season, but perhaps a harbinger of what an even more grueling club season may look like. Not only will players be playing more meaningful games than ever before, they’ll also be doing so in an unprecedented number of locations far-flung from the communities the clubs were initially founded to represent.

There is plenty of opposition to these potential overseas games, not least from those grassroots fans. The masses that fill clubs’ stadiums each week feel rightfully aggrieved that their domestic circuits would top a generation of rising commercial revenues, raised ticket prices, inflated player salaries and astronomic transfer fees by abandoning the people who gave them the platform to reap all those rewards in the first place. It’s the European Super League phenomenon, in a different form.

It shouldn’t be lost that as English fans clamour for a concession on more favorable kick-off times, team owners may one day have their eyes fixed on a potential North London derby in New York, LA or Nome, Alaska.

The discussion is fierce enough and relevant enough to broader trends of globalization that it is no longer just about football. And the “real world”, like the football world, tends to agree: the trend is all but unavoidable.

“We’ve got seven Premier League clubs in London but when you look at the way the Premier League works, a lot of the revenue they receive is TV rights,” the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, told the Sports Agents podcast. “I think the point that the Premier League would make and some of the owners would make is, why can’t their fans in those countries benefit from a competitive game?”

Left unsaid, and perhaps assumed, is that the clubs themselves would also benefit massively. Most estimates peg commercial revenues from pre-season tours to be more than $10m for Premier League clubs, so it’s no wonder Europe’s biggest teams now make the United States a regular stop. At first, in the early 2000s, they did so because the marketplace was largely untapped. Today, they do so because the taps have been fully installed and fans have shown that they are willing to flood venues, regardless of the stakes.
In 2014, the Relevent-organized friendly between Manchester United and Real Madrid at Michigan Stadium set an all-time record that still stands for most spectators at a single soccer game in US history: more than 109,000, a total sellout of the Big House in Ann Arbor. The games this past weekend continued to draw solid numbers, and in locations like South Bend, Indiana, (site of Chelsea-Celtic) that do not traditionally see top-flight soccer of any type. Sunday’s Liverpool-Man United match in South Carolina sold out within hours. The ticket prices for all these games easily go into the hundreds – again, for games that mean nothing.

There’s value beyond dollars and cents as well. Every day spent in the US by a European club is a chance to get its players publicity opportunities they may never get otherwise – see Christian Pulisic’s appearance on NBC’s The Tonight Show this week, made possible because of Milan’s visit to the Big Apple. It’s the kind of mainstream exposure to a soccer star that is rarely seen in the US outside World Cups. And promoters like Relevent are at the center of much of this activity, and the money it tends to generate.

It’s easy to imagine how hosting competitive games could accelerate these trends, and it’s equally difficult to imagine it not happening soon. So while these summer friendlies might be meaningless, it would be prudent to enjoy them as much as you can while they last.

Alexander Abnos