Morocco coach Walid Regragui mentioned he believes an African team will win the World Cup in the subsequent “15 to 20 years” after his team completed fourth in Qatar.
ALSO READ: Croatia beat Morocco to finish third at World Cup
The Atlas Lions, who turned the primary African World Cup semi-finalists in historical past, misplaced Saturday’s third place play-off 2-1 towards 2018 runners-up Croatia however captured the creativeness in Qatar.
The subsequent World Cup in 2026, held throughout the USA, Canada and Mexico, will likely be expanded to 48 groups and Africa may have a minimum of 9 slots — up from 5 at current.
“With nine participants, we’re going to learn. In 15, 20 years, I’m sure an African team will win the World Cup because we’ll have learned,” mentioned Regragui.
“We have a stage to get past. We need to build on that, with hard work and desire. This DNA is not just being built for Morocco, but for the continent.”
Morocco completed prime of a gaggle together with Croatia and Belgium, who got here third on the 2018 World Cup, earlier than knocking out Spain and Portugal to attain the final 4.
Their run was ended in the semi-finals by defending champions France, however Regragui has urged his gamers to again up their historic show by profitable subsequent yr’s Africa Cup of Nations.
“I said to the players in the changing room, if you want to go down in history then you’re going to have to win the Africa Cup of Nations,” mentioned Regragui.
“We need to dominate our continent.”
Morocco have been topped African champions simply as soon as, in 1976, however their performances on the World Cup demonstrated they’re a team on the rise beneath Regragui, who was solely appointed in August.
“Tomorrow morning we’ll take stock and all realise we’ve pulled off a fantastic achievement here. We’ve earned a great deal of experience in a short space of time,” mentioned Regragui.
“We’ve gone additional than anticipated but it surely’s not sufficient. It wants to set an instance for the long run. I hope that everyone (in Africa) will be taught from the expertise.
“We’ve acquired an amazing future forward of us and we’ll preserve shifting ahead.
“Of course we’ve got the target of profitable the World Cup in the future. There’s going to be extra strain on us going ahead and hopefully there will likely be extra African groups following our instance.
“We’ve shown we can go toe to toe with top teams. Really very small details determine these games.”
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