Tangier – Determined to maintain a perfect record in their World Cup 2022 qualifiers, Morocco’s Atlas Lions took on Guinea’s Syli National tonight with an eye on the second round of the African qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Even with two games left before the end of this first round of qualifiers, a win tonight meant qualification for the next round, and the Moroccan squad played Guinea, as their coach insisted in pre-match conference, with a fair blend of composure and robust determination to lift the Guinean hurdle out of their World Cup way.
While Guinea proved hard to easily beat as early as Guinea Bissau, Morocco’s latest opponent, the 4-1 final score spoke volumes about where the Moroccan team currently stands in Africa: above almost everybody else and on par with Senegal and Algeria.
With the succulent football on display with this still in-transition but increasingly compact and furiously effective Moroccan side, Guinea’s brave and sometimes commendable performance in the first half only delayed the inevitable a little bit longer: total dominance by a technically gifted Moroccan side that no longer seems to have the goal scoring curse that has been their main weakness in recent years.
Morocco’s Bosnian coach, Vahid Halilhodzic, made some changes to his lineup. The match, initially scheduled for September 5 in Conakry, the Guinean capital, was rescheduled and moved to Rabat because of a military coup in the West African country.
For tonight’s match, Morocco’s Bosnian coach chose to start with Ilyas Chair, who scored two goals against Sudan and Guinea Bissau. The Bosnian kept the rest of the names that defeated Guinea-Bissau.
With an unexpected injury in the early minutes, Aymen Barkok left the game and ceded his place to Selim Amallah.
Ayoub El Kaabi scored the game’s opening goal with a lavish gesture in the 21st minute.
After Morocco’s goal, a Guinean team desperate for their first victory grew into the game and started taking the game to Morocco’s Atlas Lions.
As Morocco suffered for a few minutes for the first time in these qualifiers, Guinea’s Syli national took advantage of a moment of inattention in the Moroccan defensive setup to score the equalizer at the 31st minute.
Having been defensively impregnable in their recent games, Morocco’s morale dimmed after Guinea’s equalizer. While the West African pushed for more dominance, however, a second Moroccan goal in the dying minutes of the second half put things in what now appears to be the normal order for Morocco’s Atlas Lions: more goals, technical mastery, and tactical compactness.
With Amallah’s second goal at the 42nd minute, Guinea was left to desperately chase after a game that had already run far away from them.
The second half may not have been one-sided as against Sudan and Guinea Bissau; but it was mainly, almost, a one-man show for Morocco as Achraf Hakimi and Samy Mmaee caused an endless series of panicky moments in Guinea’s defense.
To Guinea’s credit, they tried – even if meekly and mostly not so threateningly – to punch back. Unlike in previous matches with Guinea-Bissau, where Bounou was more of a spectator than an actually involved performer, Morocco’s goalkeeper was more active tonight and had to deal with recurrent threats of goals.
In the second half, Amallah was able to score his second goal, third for Morocco, in the 65th minute.
Vahid made a substitution, introducing Soufiane Boufal for Ayoub El Kaabi, Imrane Louza for Faissal Fajr, and Ryan Mmaee for Zakaria Aboukhlal.
Just four minutes after entering a game that was now totally controlled by Morocco, Boufal scored the fourth goal for the Atlas Lions in the 89th minute, thus finishing the game with a glorious qualification.
For Boufal, the hope is for tonight’s sumptuous acrobatic goal, his first for Morocco in ages, to be a morale-boosting moment for more beautiful memories to come with the national team.
