FIFA World Cup 2022: How Morocco’s solid defending and attacking plan helped them create history – tactical analysis

Morocco faced Portugal in the quarter-finals of the FIFA World Cup 2022 at Al Thumama Stadium, Qatar, and the game ended with an unprecedented Morocco win and qualification to the World Cup semi-finals. In fact, this was the first African and Arab national team to ever reach the World Cup semi-finals and that explains the amount of joy seen in the stands.

Morocco achieved way more than what was expected from them in this tournament and they can continue to dream even bigger as they will meet France in the semi-finals after the latter beat England after an entertaining match as well. It will be very interesting to see how Morocco will deal with a team like France and whether they will use the same tactics that allowed them to win against Belgium, Spain and Portugal or they will adopt a different strategy to cope with France’s threats and powerful players   especially on their left flank where there are players like Theo Hernandez and Kylian Mbappé. But before thinking about the semi-finals, let’s delve into Morocco vs Portugal and explore what happened between the two teams from a tactical perspective in this tactical analysis article.

The analysis will look at both teams’ performances with a focus on how Morocco were more efficient than Portugal in defending and attacking, without forgetting to identify Morocco’s possible improvements in attack. And although the score tells us that Morocco were better in attack, we will also explore how Portugal could have been way more clinical as they created numerous goalscoring chances during this match.

Line-ups

Walid Regragui started the match according to the 4-1-4-1 system, which repeatedly turned into a 4-3-3 in attack and a 4-1-4-1/ 4-5-1 in defence. Sevilla’s Yassine Bounou played in goal and the back four in front of him was composed of PSG’s and former Real Madrid and Inter’s Achraf Hakimi, Jawad El Yamiq, Romain Saiss and Yahia Attiyat Allah. Fiorentina’s Sofyan Amrabat, Azzedine Ounahi and Selim Amallah formed the midfield trio while Hakim Ziyech and Sofiane Boufal started the match as wingers. Plus, the team’s sole striker was Youssef En-Nesyri.

On the other side, Portugal preferred to start the game using a 4-2-3-1 formation with Digoo Costa in goal, Diogo Dalot as RB, Pepe and Ruben Días as centre-backs and Raphael Guerreiro chosen as LB. The midfield was made up of Otavio and Rúben Neves and in front of them, Bernardo Silva was the advanced playmaker, Bruno Fernandes and João Félix played on both wings while Gonçalo Ramos, the replacement for Cristiano Ronaldo, was the team’s striker. In fact, it was strange for Fernando Santos to not include dangerous and clinical attacking players like Ronaldo and especially Milan’s Rafael Leão from the beginning of the match, knowing that the two players can be extremely useful both in playmaking and goalscoring. It is understandable though to keep Ronaldo fresh for the second half and not use him for the whole match, however, it is not really a convincing choice to keep a player like Leão on the bench for most parts of the match and not exploit his excellent abilities.

Morocco’s solid defending and realistic attacking performance

Just like against Belgium and Spain, Morocco adopted almost the same plans and systems when defending and when attacking. The team was continuously compact at the back and prevented most of Portugal’s penetrations and key passes thanks to their two solid lines of defence and to Amrabat who usually stands between those two lines and makes crucial interceptions. In order to avoid Portugal’s counter-attacking threats, Morocco ensured that their defensive block remained low in order to absorb Portugal’s attempts, contain them and avoid one vs one situations. This did not stop Portugal’s attacks for sure but it limited their threats and obliged them to resort to shots from distance or to crosses from the wings rather than trying to penetrate through the box. It is true that Portugal had numerous dangerous shooting opportunities that could have been scored, yet, Morocco’s strategy remains successful since it helped prevent Portugal from scoring. The following graphic shows how Morocco defended inside their own half for most of the match and made most of the interceptions inside the final third. At the same time, it was intelligent from Morocco to avoid committing fouls in dangerous areas of the pitch as they only committed one foul near the box and it was way too angled for a direct shot.

Mo