Meknes – Moroccan Atlas Lions beat Guinea-Bissau 5-0 tonight at the Moulay Abdellah Complex in Rabat. With this emphatic victory, the Moroccan national team is now leading its World Cup qualifying group with 6 points.
The head coach of the Atlas Lions, the Bosnian Vahid Halilhodzic, made many changes to his team’s lineup and tactical buildup for tonight’s against Guinea-Bissau. In addition to some changes in his starting 11, the Bosnian manager started today’s game with a 4-2-3-1 formation.
In-form Achraf Hakimi, who has had a brilliant start of the season with Paris Saint-Germain, scored tonight’s first goal with a sumptuous gesture at 31st minute.
After Morocco’s first goal, Guinea-Bissau tried to punch back but consistently failed to pass Morocco’s solid wall of defence composed of Adam Massina, Achraf Hakimi, Nayef Aguerd, and Ghanem Saiss. So seemingly compact was the Moroccan defense, and manifestly overpowered and uninspired the Guinean attacking line, that Moroccan goalkeeper Yassine Bounou spent large spells of the match like a distant, uninterested spectator.
As Morocco dominated pace and imposed its tempo, Imran Louza converted a penalty to gift the increasingly confident Atlas Lions their second goal of the night. Ilias Chair, one of the new names in Morocco’s in-construction team, killed any implausible hopes the West Africans might have of bouncing back by scoring a fantastic third goal from the left side at minute 49.
Thirteen minutes later, a special assist from Adam Massina to Ayoub El Kaabi resulted in a fourth goal at the 62nd minute.
Halilhodzic made several substitutions in the second half, introducing Faissal Fajr for Imran Louza and Munir Haddadi for Ilias Chair.
Within mere minutes of his introduction, the fresh-looking Munir Haddadi drove the final nail into the coffin of a besieged and lifeless Guinean team following an assist from Boufal at minute 82.
Tonight’s game was part of a two-legged confrontation between the two teams, with the second leg scheduled to be played at 8 p.m on October 9 at the Mohammed V Complex in Casablanca.
