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Rabat – Ahead of the much-anticipated Morocco vs Spain round of 16 game, Morocco’s head coach Walid Regragui looks determined to shut out what he describes as distracting noises from the Spanish media.
In a pre-match press conference on Monday, Regragui responded to a deliberately provocative report published on Sunday by Spanish news outlet La Vanguardia.
“We don’t care what the Spanish media is saying,” said the Moroccan coach, arguing that his players know the stakes of the game against Spain and are focused on winning and continuing to make Moroccans proud.
“It is a good war… the Spanish media is doing its part, as it is Moroccan media,” he said, stressing that his team “knows what they have to do.”
Regragui added that “talking about what a newspaper said does not fall within our interests, because we are Moroccans, with a green Moroccan passport.”
The remarks of the Atlas Lions’ coach come in response to a Spanish outlet’s controversial description of the Moroccan national team as “the UN team,” in reference to the different birthplaces of a number of Moroccan players.
The Moroccan national team includes 14 players who were not born in Morocco, said the Spanish outlet, provocatively describing these players as “foreigners” who have chosen Morocco over their countries of birth.
The report sparked criticism and backlash, with many Moroccans taking to the internet to respond to what they said is part of the dirty tactics of the Spanish media ahead of a critical World Cup match against an impressive Moroccan team.
“Shameful article from the Spanish newspaper La VANGUARDIA describes the national team as a team of the UN since some of the players were born abroad,” a sports Twitter page wrote.
Referring to la Vanguardia’s provocation, another Moroccan football page said that the newspaper “should be ashamed” of its report.
The Spanish newspaper’s report comes at a time when a number of international media and public figures have hailed Morocco’s remarkable performances in the group stage of the ongoing World Cup.
Having deservedly and impressively topped a group that included Belgium and Croatia, many of the “impressed” foreign observers and commentators have said, Morocco’s Atlas Lions will be a formidable opponent for Spain on Tuesday.
