Stylish Morocco exit with no goal

What you need to know:

  • Soccer. Their fans were awesome at the Luhzniki and some of the football the Atlas Lions played over the two legs took the breath away but ultimately football matches are won when the onion bag crosses the white line into the net. Morocco came up short in that aspect.

MOSCOW. When Herve Renard took his seat in the press conference to answer a plethora of questions from journalists, it was not easy to tell what exactly went through his mind.
The Moroccan coach had just seen his team dominate another game of football at the Fifa World Cup only to be beaten by another cross.
In the tournament opener, Aziz Bouhaddouz had struck an unlucky own goal with the last play of the game to hand Iran victory and this time round Cristiano Ronaldo lost his marker to power home a firm header with the first play of the game.
With the last play of the Iran game and the first play of the Portugal match, Morocco were knocked out of the competition. On the basis of their territorial dominance in both games, they probably deserved something out of both games.
But a chronic inability to punish teams was always going to be punished, such is the unforgiving stage that the Fifa World Cup is.
“I am very proud of the team and the Moroccan people,” Renard told the press conference.
“Their goal should not have stood. Go watch the replay and see what their number three (Pepe) was doing,” the Frenchman, a two-time Africa Cup of Nations winner who has twice been in Uganda as coach of Zambia and Angola, argued.
For all the clever running of Hakim Ziyach and Noureddine Amrabat, Portugal showed the better big stage temperament but absorbing all the body blows that Morocco offered.
On the rare occasions the Atlas Lions fashioned a way past Pepe and Jose Fonte, goalkeeper Rui Patricio stood firm such as when he stretched to his right to deny Younes Belhanda’s header which looked destined for the bottom right corner.
It was a cruel way to bow out of the World Cup for a Moroccan team that knitted the ball beautifully but the game of football has no rewards for possession.
As it is, their final group game against Spain will be a formality. The Atlas Lions will be seeking a third World Cup victory in 16 World Cup matches through five editions of football’s biggest event.
In 15 matches, they have managed two victories, four losses and nine draws. The best showing came at the 1986 World Cup where they earned their first World Cup win, a 3-1 victory over Portugal, en route to reaching the second round where West Germany stopped them 1-0.

*The writer is Monitor Publications’ Sports Editor