Morocco's national team coach, Mohamed Wahbi, stressed the difficulty of the match that brought his team together with their Brazilian counterparts in the World Cup, explaining that the heat negatively affected his players.
Morocco and Brazil played to a 1-1 draw early Sunday morning, Mecca time, in the first round of Group C in the 2026 World Cup group stage, which also includes Haiti and Scotland.
Ismail Saïbari opened the scoring for Morocco in the 21st minute, before Vinicius Junior equalized for Brazil in the 32nd minute.
"We did exactly what was required of us, just as we had planned," Wahbi said in media statements after the match, "but I faced the Italian Carlo Ancelotti (Brazil's coach), which was not easy for me."
The Moroccan coach added, "We were aiming for victory and the players wanted to win. We felt the match slipped from our hands because we didn't win. We wanted to beat Brazil."
Wahbi explained, "The substitute players were really good, but the heat affected the team members, and some of them were participating in their first World Cup, so it wasn't easy."
He continued, "We need to improve some things in the Scotland game and we should look for other solutions."
In statements to the Moroccan media, Wahbi hinted that his players were not happy after the draw against Brazil, indicating that they felt they were capable of winning.
"This is unfortunate," Wahbi said in statements reported by the Moroccan website "Al-Botola". "We wanted to win this match. I think that at the end of the match the players were not in a state of great joy or celebration madness because we drew with Brazil."
The Moroccan national team coach revealed, "I felt, at least from my conversations with the players, that there was a slight feeling of not completing the mission, as we could have achieved victory; that was the goal."
It should be noted that the 48 participating teams in the World Cup were divided into 12 groups, with 4 teams in each group, with the top two teams qualifying for the knockout stages, in addition to the 8 best third-placed teams.
Morocco will play its next match in the tournament against Scotland in the second round of the group, which also includes a match between Brazil and Haiti.
