Portugal vs Morocco

Cristiano Ronaldo and Portugal put tremendous pressure on Morocco but could not find a way through, but what contributed to their failure?

And his versatility to perform multiple roles at the same time would have come in handy for Santos & co. But he would have solved the lack of ball progression issue, which put additional responsibility on the shoulders of Bernardo Silva and Fernandes to drop a bit deeper before driving with the ball. On the flip side, the Moroccan midfield was energetic, broke up the play well, and put in a number of tackles that prevented Portugal from getting forward. The difference between the Portuguese team sheet from the Switzerland game and the Morocco game was a key cog: William Carvalho. Carvalho is a master at preventing any opposition threat at the source with his tough-tackling and robust style of play. That was certainly not the case at this year’s World Cup, where Portugal looked to have given it a proper go in the final third. But Morocco dug deep, defended for their lives, gave up few clear-cut opportunities in the first half, and just wanted it more to make the Arab and African continents proud. Morocco sat deep and forced Portugal into a lot of long-range shots from distance in their futile attempt to equalise. And reports suggested that he wanted to leave the national camp early after a rift with Fernando Santos. But Portugal truly broke the shackles in the Round of 16 and showcased their world-class attacking talent, The fact remains that it was not even a full-strength Moroccan side that sent them packing home, with key defensive duo of Nayef Aguerd and Noussair Mazraoui sitting out due to injuries suffered against Spain. had a fantastic opportunity to buck the trend in Qatar.

Tactical analysis and tactics of Morocco vs Portugal. Read our tactical analysis of how Morocco and Portugal performed in terms of tactics.

On the other hand, Portugal will have to identify their mistakes and work harder to do better in the upcoming tournaments knowing that they currently have some of the best players in almost every position. Morocco succeeded in making an unprecedented achievement by knocking Portugal out of the tournament and advancing to the semi-finals for the first time ever. At the same time, they paid the price for their defensive mistakes as they could have conceded more than one goal after they attacked with numbers and played with a high defensive line in an attempt to press on Morocco and score the equaliser. But they failed to concretise their chances and weren’t lucky enough on some of the occasions. They focus their passes on one flank before switching to the other flank quickly in order to create numerical superiority and that plan worked for them on most occasions. Moreover, it must be said that not giving confidence to these players surely impacts these players psychologically and makes them perform in a less confident way and that was clear in Leão’s performance when he was subbed during the second half. But before looking at their missed opportunities, it should be said that the single goal of the match came from the right-wing thanks to a great assist from Attiyat Allah and an outstanding jump and header from the striker En-Nesyri. The following graphic shows how Morocco defended inside their own half for most of the match and made most of the interceptions inside the final third. It will be very interesting to see how Morocco will deal with a team like France and whether they will use the same In fact, this was the first African and Arab national team to ever reach the World Cup semi-finals and that explains the amount of joy seen in the stands. [Milan](https://totalfootballanalysis.com/category/teams/ac-milan)’s Rafael Leão from the beginning of the match, knowing that the two players can be extremely useful both in playmaking and goalscoring. Sevilla’s Yassine Bounou played in goal and the back four in front of him was composed of

Portugal duo Pepe and Bruno Fernandes have questioned the appointment of Argentine referee Facundo Tello after they crashed out in Saturday rsquo;s World ...

We had the quality to win the World Cup and we didn’t manage to.” We didn’t play anything in the second half. What did we play the second half?