Talaa Saoud al Atlassi: Morocco earns respect at the World Cup

For more than a month, football will be everywhere: in conversations, in the media, in people’s emotions, and even in state calculations. The World Cup represents that unique pause during which the planet seems to set aside some of its concerns to focus on a ball, on national colors, and on dreams of victory. 

This competition holds a singular power. It fascinates to the point that those who enjoy it wish it would start again forever. It is barely mentioned, and it is already on everyone’s lips. Football exerts an influence over the world that few cultural or political phenomena can claim. 

Forty-eight nations have placed their hopes in twenty-six players each. These men have overcome the challenges of qualifiers to elevate their flag to the top of the global hierarchy. Behind them stand entire peoples, bearers of expectations, aspirations, and a search for recognition that far transcends the limits of the playing field. 

Football, much more than a game

Players enter the field alone, but they never carry only their talent. They carry the history, frustrations, ambitions, and sometimes even the wounds of their nations. 

The weight of this responsibility is not measured in minutes played, not even when games extend to one hundred and twenty minutes. It is measured by the intensity of collective passion. A passion capable of exhausting, sometimes even breaking, but which, in exceptional cases, leads to the pinnacle. 

Football has become a particular form of confrontation between nations. A symbolic war where passes, dribbles, and shots are the weapons.

The former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi denounced in his “Third Universal Theory” exposed in the “Green Book,” the fact that a minority practices sports while the majority are content to attend the spectacle. According to his conception, the crowds should have invaded the fields to relegate professional athletes to the stands. 

History has demonstrated the limits of this view. Libya has neither established itself as a great sporting nation nor as a model of popular competition. Libyan crowds have not acquired either the culture of sporting challenge or that of democratic political confrontation. 

A symbolic war between nations

However, Gaddafi may have unintentionally perceived an essential reality: sports competitions are no longer the exclusive affair of players. 

On their international stage, they mobilize entire peoples. Anthems, flags, the media, and collective emotions fully participate in the confrontation. The very vocabulary borrows heavily from the military register: attack, defense, counterattack, tactics, strategy, or even fatal blow. 

Football has become a particular form of confrontation between nations. A symbolic war where passes, dribbles, and shots are the weapons. Goals do not spill blood but can bring forth tears or wound the pride of entire peoples. 

Morocco among the best nations in the world

No other sport has reached such a degree of popularity. Even the United States, long attached to its own team sports, has ended up succumbing to the passion for football and today boasts a team capable of rivaling the historic powers. 

This popularity is explained by social, sporting, and political factors, to which a considerable economic dimension has now been added. Football has become a sector of investment, an instrument of projection, and sometimes even a substitute for achievements obtained in areas of development, innovation, or international influence. 

It is in this demanding universe that Morocco has risen to the global elite. Its presence in the World Cup is neither a gift nor a whim of fate. It is the result of long-term work, steady progress, and ambition driven by an entire people. 

The Kingdom faces the best teams in the world. It does so with its players, its fans, its dreams, and its regained confidence. And above all, it does so because it has earned the right to be there. 

Sport as a driver of the Moroccan national project

Morocco is one of the countries that have integrated sport in general, and football in particular, into its development strategy. The Moroccan reform and modernization project, whose foundations and objectives were established by King Mohammed VI, features a global vision in which different areas of action complement and interact. Sport occupies an essential place as an instrument of progress. 

At an individual level, it helps foster a positive sense of national belonging, based on pride in Moroccan identity, without closure or excess. It also promotes a culture of excellence based on merit, competition, and effort, far from deceit, intrigues, or artifices. Physical training remains inseparable from moral education that reinforces the national values of a country nourished by its deep history and fully willing to contribute to universal ideals of peace, solidarity, and cooperation among peoples. 

Popular fervor without hatred toward others

In Morocco, it is true that episodes of violence between local club fans have been observed. These outbreaks originate in various realities: excessive regionalism, social vulnerabilities of some youths attracted by violent behavior, or even the consequences of rapid urbanization that lacked sufficient economic and social support. 

However, these incidents have never marked international competitions. Celebrations of the national team’s victories, both in Morocco and abroad, have always been characterized by overwhelming enthusiasm without ever humiliating opponents or despising the other. And when the national team is defeated, Moroccans know how to contain their disappointment, heal the wounds of their pride, and maintain their confidence in future successes. 

The African Cup of Nations final held in Morocco was a notable example. The world saw how Moroccan fans refused to respond to provocations from some Senegalese supporters present in the stadium. They chose not to allow these sporting incidents to affect human, economic, or political relations between the two countries. 

Morocco facing hostility campaigns

During the same edition of the African Cup, Morocco was also the target of a smear campaign aimed at tarnishing the Kingdom’s image and compromising the success of this continental event. 

It was evident that this campaign was carried out in an organized and deliberate manner. Some Western media even revealed that a Maghreb country hostile to Morocco had allocated nearly six million dollars over a year to a global plan to discredit the Moroccan organization of the competition. 

However, the success of this African Cup was officially recognized by African authorities. 

In their final assessments, they praised the quality of the organization and the exceptional receptiveness given to delegations and fans. 

In the face of these attacks, Moroccans, both at the state level and within civil society, chose moderation. They refused to respond to provocation or be dragged into a spiral of emotional reactions. 

A World Cup faced with confidence

Morocco today approaches the World Cup with the mentality of a participant convinced of its worth. The national team enjoys immense respect worldwide due to its outstanding performance at the Qatar World Cup. 

This team is forged by the ambition to win. It aspires to play a leading role within this world elite, not only because it has high-level preparation but also because it represents a country that has taken football out of marginality, improvisation, and random management. 

The Kingdom now regards sport as one of the engines of its global success, just like other economic and social development projects. 

A victory that transcends the playing field

There is no doubt that Morocco’s participation in this World Cup will be remarkable. The most attentive observers already expect to see the Kingdom confirm its place among the great football nations worldwide. 

Whatever the final outcome, this presence will constitute a new success in a long series of achievements. What matters is that these advances are accompanied by a clear awareness of obstacles that still mark the country’s path. These hurdles, resistances, and difficulties may slow its progress but do not stop it, as the achievements reinforce each other within the national whole. 

Morocco thus continues steadily its path towards consolidating the unity of its territory and people. More than half a century after choosing loyalty to its history and national constants, it now reaps the fruits of diplomacy based on reason and perseverance. 

More than 140 countries now understand its national stance and support its peaceful proposal for resolving an artificially sustained conflict. With this backing, these states recognize Morocco in its entirety and wish to participate in its development dynamic. 

A key player in Africa

Morocco today occupies a prominent position in the African continent. Industrially, it has reached a level placing it among Africa’s most competitive economies, granting it significant appeal to numerous African partners. 

This influence is based on a cooperation doctrine founded on the principle of mutual benefit guiding its relations with countries across the continent. 

For the third consecutive year, the Kingdom also hosts the Marrakech Platform, organized in collaboration with the United Nations, gathering African intelligence services. Nearly forty security agencies from the continent participate, demonstrating the trust placed in Moroccan expertise in counterterrorism. 

Morocco today occupies a prominent position in the African continent.

This recognition is not a result of complacency. It stems from operational efficiency and security preparedness acknowledged internationally. Such efficacy draws strength from the clarity of the reformist and modernization project driven by King Mohammed VI. 

International recognition fuels ambition 

The U.S. ambassador to Morocco also highlighted this dynamic during the celebration of U.S. Independence Day in Rabat. He stated that Morocco is a solid ally of the United States and that President Donald Trump firmly supported the resolution process of the Sahara issue based on the Moroccan autonomy proposal. 

This statement serves as a clear indicator of the influence Morocco has acquired on the international scene. According to this interpretation, the U.S. administration does not forge strategic alliances or grant support to actors it considers weak. It is Morocco’s solidity, credibility of decisions, and scope of capabilities that structure its foreign relations and shape how partners perceive it. 

These elements are just some examples among recent advances that, in the author’s view, testify to the achievements accumulated by the Kingdom in various fields. They illustrate a national context from which the Moroccan football team draws inspiration to fuel its confidence, strengthen determination, and pursue excellence. 

The national team does not operate in a vacuum. It is the reflection of a country immersed in a broad transformation process driven by ambition for progress, projection, and recognition. The players representing Morocco’s colors on World Cup fields therefore carry much more than a jersey: they embody a collective will to succeed. 

That is why Morocco faces this competition with the calmness of those who have earned a place among the best and with the ambition to confirm that achievement was not an exception but the expression of a trajectory. A trajectory that, according to the author, links sporting success to a broader dynamic of development, influence, and confidence in the future. 

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Maghrebi.org. Talaa Saoud al Atlassi is a Moroccan writer, political analyst and journalist. This piece was originally published in Atalayar.

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