{"id":144639,"date":"2023-10-14T17:24:12","date_gmt":"2023-10-14T14:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/goalballlive.com\/?p=144639"},"modified":"2023-10-14T17:24:12","modified_gmt":"2023-10-14T14:24:12","slug":"regragui-super-eagles-morroco-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/goalballlive.com\/regragui-super-eagles-morroco-claim\/","title":{"rendered":"Morocco boss Regragui makes bold Super Eagles claim ahead of AFCON 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Morocco coach Walid Regragui has disclosed that the Super Eagles of Nigeria are better than the Atlas Lions ahead of the 2023 <a href=\"https:\/\/goalballlive.com\/africa-cup-of-nations\/\">Africa Cup of Nations<\/a> (AFCON) in C\u00f4te d'Ivoire next year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The coach, who led the Atlas Lions to the semifinals of the 2022 <a href=\"https:\/\/goalballlive.com\/fifa-world-cup\/\">World Cup<\/a> in Qatar, has made a wild claim while trying to react to the draw.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The draw was done on Thursday, October 12 in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Morocco are in Group F alongside DR Congo, Zambia and Tanzania.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">2022 World Cup semi-finalists Morocco \ud83c\uddf2\ud83c\udde6 in group F of AFCON 2023 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/XGPHRVO6Dw\" target=\"_blank\">pic.twitter.com\/XGPHRVO6Dw<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Eric Njiru (@EricNjiiru) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EricNjiiru\/status\/1712564253972951430?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">October 12, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Regragui hails Super Eagles ahead of 2023 AFCON<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe were aware that this edition of the CAN would be the toughest. No team is affordable and no group is easy,&#8221; commented Regragui in a video broadcast by the Moroccan Football Federation (FRMF).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;We are also facing two teams who are part of our qualifying group for the 2026 World Cup (Zambia and Tanzania).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;We are continuing the preparations. The most important thing is that we are entering the competition now since we know who we are up against. When you take part in such a competition, you must be ready for anything.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe respect all the teams. It\u2019s a balanced group that won\u2019t be easy. We will do what we have to do to go far. Everyone dreams of winning, including us.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;We will approach this competition with respect. We know the African continent and above all we know football. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;We have a good group with players who want to win a national team title. But I say it again, it will not be easy,&#8221; continued the former defender who made 45 appearances for Morocco during his playing days.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Regragui also spoke about his side's preparation for the tournament and the desire to go far.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The tactician, whose side reached the highest finish by any African side at the World Cup, claimed his side are no longer favourites going into the event in C\u00f4te d'Ivoire.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;We will prepare well. What matters is that we have the experience, whether it's me or the staff. We played in Africa, we competed in these competitions,&#8221; he concluded<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;We were also assistants to Rachid Taoussi in South Africa (in 2013). We know that this competition is decided on details and on the state of mind.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cFor the next CAN, we are no longer the favorites and there are teams who are better than us like Algeria, Nigeria and Egypt. I am much more wary of teams in hat 2 like Algeria, Nigeria and Ivory Coast who will be at home.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Analysis of Walid Regragui's comments<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">His claim that the Super Eagles is better than the Atlas Lions is largely untrue. Similarly, Algeria, who won the tournament in 2019, were in Pot 1 and not pot 2.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Meanwhile, using the last World Cup as an example, the Super Eagles were not present, while Morocco made it to the semifinals of the competition.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On the other hand, Morocco are currently the highest-ranked side on the continent on the FIFA Rankings while Nigeria occupy the sixth position.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Although the Atlas Lions have a solitary AFCON title (1976), the Super Eagles have underperformed recently but will always be considered among the favourites going to the continental showpiece because of their three AFCON titles and eight third-place finishes.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Morocco coach Walid Regragui has disclosed that the Super Eagles of Nigeria are better than the Atlas Lions ahead of the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) in C\u00f4te d&#8217;Ivoire next year.\u00a0 The coach, who led the Atlas Lions to the semifinals of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, has made a wild claim while [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":977,"featured_media":144640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"no"},"categories":[13881,1],"tags":[],"table_tags":[],"acf":[],"modified_by":"Barend Prins","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/goalballlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144639"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/goalballlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/goalballlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goalballlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/977"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goalballlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144639"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/goalballlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":144652,"href":"https:\/\/goalballlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144639\/revisions\/144652"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goalballlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/goalballlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goalballlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goalballlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144639"},{"taxonomy":"table_tags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goalballlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/table_tags?post=144639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}