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Rabat – Morocco’s national football 5-a-side team qualified today for the semi-finals of the Paralympic Games in Tokyo after knocking out the European champions Spain.
The Atlas Lions are the only African country participating in the Tokyo Paralympics. The Moroccan team qualified for the tournament after defeating Mali 5-1 in the final game of the African championship.
Better still, Morocco is the first African team to ever reach the semi-finals of the 5-a-Side football Paralympics.
Morocco’s semi-final qualification comes after today’s draw against Spain (1-1), which allowed the team to finish second in group B behind Argentina and ahead of Spain and Thailand.
The Moroccan team was the first to score in the 18th minute thanks to a penalty-kick that Morocco’s talisman Snisla Zouhair successfully converted. Spain managed to score the equalizer in the second half thanks to Malaga’s forward Martin Gaitan.
The Moroccan squad started its participation in this year’s Paralympics with a 2-1loss against London 2016 bronze medalist Argentina, before outclassing Thailand in the second game (2-0).
The African champions are now set to play their semi-final on September 2 against Brazil, the current Paralympic champions. With Brazil having won the gold medal since the introduction of this discipline at the Paralympic Games in Athens 2004, Morocco’s road to the final could not have been more challenging.
But the African champions survived a tough group and appear to have the confidence and personnel to take the game to Brazil in the hopes of surprising the South Americans.
The Atlas Lions have already faced Brazil in Rio 2016 when the national team was close to ending Brazil’s undefeated streak after leading 1-0 in the first half. The squad kept the lead up until the second half, where the reigning champions scored three goals to win 3-1.
On September 2, however, the Moroccan team will be hoping to write a completely different story from the second half surrender in Rio five years ago.
