Morocco’s World Cup rise built on royal investment ahead of Canada last-16 tie

Morocco’s run to the last 16 of the World Cup, where they face hosts Canada on Saturday, is no fluke but the product of years of purposeful, state-backed investment in the game, according to the Daily Mail’s Ian Herbert.

Herbert reports that scenes of jubilation have swept through the streets of Casablanca after every Moroccan victory, with supporters crammed into car boots, riding scooters in groups, and children held aloft on shoulders to celebrate the Atlas Lions’ progress. Rather than uncoordinated euphoria, the Daily Mail writer argues this reflects a carefully engineered football project driven by Morocco’s monarchy and funded by the country’s mineral wealth.

A project years in the making

According to the Daily Mail, that investment now makes Morocco a serious outside bet not only for a deep run in the current tournament but also for the 2030 World Cup, which the nation is set to co-host. Herbert points to a fierce sense of nationhood as central to the work done behind the scenes by the Moroccan football federation and its backers.

The Daily Mail piece traces the roots of this transformation back to Morocco’s run to the semi-finals at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar under manager Walid Regragui, a campaign that saw the north African side become the first African or Arab nation to reach that stage of the competition. Herbert suggests the meetings and team culture established during that tournament laid the groundwork for the country’s continued progress on the world stage.

Eyes on the last 16 and beyond

Morocco’s reward for topping their group is a last-16 meeting with co-hosts Canada, a fixture that will be watched closely by supporters back home and across the Moroccan diaspora. Herbert’s analysis frames the tie as another test of whether the nation’s long-term investment in youth development and infrastructure can translate into sustained success at the highest level.

With Morocco already installed as co-hosts of the 2030 tournament alongside Spain and Portugal, the Daily Mail suggests the current squad’s performances in North America will be seen as an early marker of what the country hopes to achieve on home soil in four years’ time.

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