Yassine Bounou was born in Montreal 31 years ago, in the Côte-des-Neiges district. He grew up in Morocco, where he trained in the amateur ranks, and has been playing professionally in Spain for ten years. Last season, the Sevilla player was named La Liga’s best goalkeeper.
On Tuesday in Doha, the so-called Bono blocked shots from Spanish midfielders Soler and Busquets during the penalty shootout to send Morocco to the quarter-finals of the World Cup for the first time. of its history.
The Atlas Lions, Cinderella team of this World Cup, are only the fourth representatives of Africa to go so far in the tournament, after Cameroon in 1990, Senegal in 2002 and Ghana in 2010. Thanks to Bounou , there is a bit of us in this historic victory for the Moroccans. So much for the local angle and the chauvinistic entry into this column.
Nearly a million ethnic Moroccans reside in Spain and it is no coincidence that Achraf Hakimi, star defender for Morocco and Paris Saint-Germain, scored the winning goal in the penalty shootout, daring an ambitious semblance of panenka.
Hakimi, born in Madrid and educated at Real Madrid, was one of eight players in Tuesday’s starting XI who were not born in Morocco. On the other hand, he never had the slightest doubt, like Yassine Bounou, that his sporting nationality – that of the heart – was Moroccan.
PHOTO JAVIER SORIANO, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Ashraf Hakimi (2)
Morocco joins Croatia among the teams in the quarter-finals from Canada’s very strong group. If we are still trying to put the World Cup of Canadians into perspective and to console ourselves with the elimination of the Reds…
The round of 16 between Morocco and Spain gave rise to a very tense match, with very few clear chances on either side, before extra time, which offered a much more open game.
We witnessed a fascinating game of chess at the Education City stadium. Morocco, very disciplined in a compact formation, bet on a wait-and-see attitude, leaving Spain to largely control the game, hoping to take advantage of openings in the counter-attack.
It was the Moroccans who had the most chances in the first period, Sofiane Boufal, transformed into Ronaldinho from Angers, creating many breaches with a particularly attractive technical game on the left flank.
The defensive blocks, however, remained firmly in place. The Moroccans, scabby, defended at 11 in the last third, leaving no interesting space to the Spaniards. In the second half, La Roja imposed themselves more, preventing Morocco, pushed to their last entrenchments, from retaining the ball. Clear chances, however, were rare.
La Roja made more than 1,000 passes, 700 more than their opponents, but with possession that was admittedly fluid, but rather sterile and repetitive. This Spain, once so seductive in its tiki-taka, has become dull and predictable. Even, I dare say, in their crushing 7-0 victory over Costa Rica in the opening round of the tournament.
The Spaniards Gavi, the 18-year-old prodigy, and Pedri, the maestro two years his senior, were unable to showcase their extraordinary talent, so evident at the club in Barcelona, they were padlocked in the midfield. by the Moroccan Sofyan Amrabat, omnipresent.
It was a brilliant display of defensive realism by Morocco (Canada could take notes), a wall looming around a cornerstone, their courageous captain Romain Saïss. A block. And behind, Yassine Bounou, of an Olympian calm.
“The only thing I would have liked is that we could take Bounou out of the game and replace him with another goalkeeper,” coach Luis Enrique quipped after the match, referring to the penalty shootout. “We felt the support of our supporters, whether they were in Morocco or anywhere else on the planet,” said Yassine Bounou. There were many in Quebec…
Hakimi and Hakim Ziyech, who has just returned to the team after a dispute with his former coach, caused most of the Moroccan counter-attacks on the right flank until the very end of the match, offering a silver platter of chances in gold to Walid Cheddira, at the 104e and at the 114e minute.
The Spaniards obviously didn’t want to go to the penalty shootout. They took the tempo up a notch (but not all the time, that would be against house traditions). They believed it until the very last second, when Pablo Sarabia’s volley, who had just entered, grazed the outside of the post. Sarabia was again frustrated by the post in the first of the penalty shootout.
PHOTOPEDRO NUNES, REUTERS
Pablo Sarabia
It was the fourth out of five times the Spaniards had lost on penalties in the World Cup. When Spain were eliminated in the semi-finals of the Euro by Italy on penalties last year, Luis Enrique suggested to his players to train to take 1000 penalties in the year in club. The fact remains that the shootout is a lottery. In training, all these players score from the penalty spot 9 out of 10 times. In the World Cup qualifying match, it’s a different story.
The irresistible, ambitious, creative and highly organized Atlas Lions deserved to win. It was only the second time that they participated in the elimination phase of the World Cup, they who had lost at the last minute in 1986, in the round of 16, against West Germany of Lothar Matthäus. They will face Portugal, resplendent against Switzerland, in the quarter-finals. Will they surprise us again?