By Victor Kanayo
For the first time ever, Morocco early Sunday morning, (Nigerian time) defeated Brazil, five times World champions in an international friendly clash in Tangier.
The victory by the Morocco’s Atlas Lions happened three months after their outstanding World Cup performance in Qatar.
At the 2022 mundial, Morocco became the first African and Arab nation to beat all odds and reach semi-final of the global soccer fiesta.
In their latest feat, it was Sofiane Boufal and Abdelhamid Sabiri, who scored to give Morocco a 2-1 victory over Brazil.
Throughout the encounter, Brazil were more aggressive and controlled possession, but Morocco were always dangerous in the counter-attacks.
Giving an account of how the entire duration panned out, captured by Reuters, Palmeiras winger Rony, who was making his debut in his first call with the Brazilian team, missed a sitter from close range in the 13th minute.
Goalkeeper Yassine Bounou, almost gifted Brazil a goal in the 22th minute, with a comical mistake while trying to put the ball in play with his feet, but Rony’s shot to an empty goal was blocked by a defender and Bounou managed to recover in time to save Vinicius’ strike from the rebound.
One minute later, Bounou once again, made a mistake gifting the ball to Vinicius score to an empty goal, but the effort was ruled out by the VAR due to a controversial offside in the build, with the Brazilian players berating the Tunisian official Sadok Selmi.
Then, Emerson Royal lost the ball close to his own box and Morocco didn’t waste the golden opportunity gifted by the defender, with Bilal El Khannous assisting Sofiane Boufal to score from close range.
Hakim Ziyech missed wide two great chances for Morocco before the break and goalkeeper Bounou denied a Rodrygo strike from the edge of the area, with a Hollywood save.
But Brazil found the equalizer in the 67th minute thanks to a schoolboy mistake by Bounou, who failed to hold on to a weak shot by Casemiro and let the ball slip under him and inside the net.
However, the locals hit back 12 minutes later, with substitute Abdelhamid Sabiri, who took down a lost ball inside the Brazilian box and unleashed an unstoppable strike, which bounced off the crossbar into the net.
It was a goal that the team and fans needed to complete their celebrations, in about 65,000 packed full stadium.
