Morocco vs Portugal 0–0 Quarter Finals: After destroying Switzerland by 6-1, Portugal will take on Morocco in the Quarter-finals. Both teams will face each other for the third time in World Cup history, with Morocco winning the first encounter by 3-1 in 1986 while Portugal won the second fixture with Morocco by 1-0 in the previous edition.
Talking about Morocco first, they’re having the run of their history. Not any hope was attached to them from neutral fans, and it’s understandable because of the place they’re coming from. However, they have blown up everyone with their consistently good performances against top European teams. They topped their group table above Croatia and Belgium by drawing against the former and winning against the latter, the No.2 in the FIFA ranking.
In the round of 16, they knocked out another favorite to win the World Cup, Spain, by 3-0 on the penalties after extra time. Pablo Sarabia hit the post just before the end of spare time; a Bounou saved a few great chances in the standard time. Pablo Sarabia, Carlos Soler, and Sergio Busquets took the first three penalties for Spain, and all failed to hit the target. But at the same time, their goalkeeper could save only one penalty.
Moving forward, they’ll face Portugal, who made thrashed Switzerland by 6-1 in the round of 16. However, as mentioned above, Morocco also has advanced to this stage after beating some European giants and will be looking forward to down another one and creating history by qualifying for the final four.
Centre-back Aguerd was subbed off in their last game and is in the race against the time to recover and feature in the Starting XI against Portugal in his nation’s most important fixture in years.
Morocco Squad: Bounou, Hakimi, Saiss, Aguerd, Mazraoui, Ounahi, Amrabat, Amallah, Ziyech, En-Nesyri, Boufal
On the other hand, Portugal destroyed Switzerland in the round of 16 as they scored six times against them. Due to their excellent defensive performances so far, it was expected that they would prove to be a formidable opponent. Still, they couldn’t stop the Portuguese blazing guns, especially Goncalo Ramos, who scored the hat-trick (first by any player in this tournament) on his first World Cup start, making himself the second player to do this after Miroslav Klose do the same in 2002.
He scored the opener in the 17th minute. Pepe scored the second goal through Bruno Fernandes’s cross. Just six minutes after the start of the second half, Ramos scored the game’s third and his second goal of the game by converting Dalot’s low cross to the back of the net. Just four minutes later, Raphael Guerreiro sent his powerful strike past Sommer and made it 4-0. Akanji scored the only goal by Switzerland three minutes later from the corner.
Goncalo Ramos completed his hat-trick in the 67th by scoring the fifth goal by Portugal, with Felix registering the assist. Substitute Milan striker continued his excellent form in front of the plan in this World Cup as he scored the sixth goal by Portugal in the 90+2 injury time. With Leao’s goal, Portugal became just the second team in the 21st Century to achieve 6+ goals in a World Cup knock-out match, after the famous Germany 7-1 Brazil encounter in the 2014 World Cup semi-final.
Moving forward, they’ll take on Morocco, who have progressed to the Quarter-finals for the first time in their history after knocking out Luis Enrique’s Spain in the penalty shootout in the round of 16 after topping the group by beating Belgium and drawing Croatia in progress.
However, Portugal will be confident of making it to the final four after their brilliant performance against Switzerland.
Bruno Fernandes talked to the press in which Manchester United midfielder stated:
“It’s a difficult game. Morocco is an excellent team. They came first in the group and beat Spain, so we know their qualities. We want to play the best game, as always, but we have to focus on ourselves and understand what we need to do to win our game. That’s the most important thing: we do our game and do our job to get through. We know it will be a challenging game.”
Portugal Squad: Costa, Dalot, Pepe, Dias, Guerreiro, B. Silva, Carvalho, Otavio, Fernandes, Ramos, Felix
* Location: Doha, Qatar
* Stadium: Al Thumama Stadium
* Date: 10 December, Saturday
* Kick-off Time: 15:00 GMT / 10:00 ET / 07:00 PT
Morocco has beaten the likes of Belgium and Spain in this mega event. There is every reason they’ll be looking forward to doing another upset in this later stage of the tournament against Portugal, who’re having their best campaign after Euro 2016 and will be confident of cruising past Morocco and booking a spot in the final four.
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