Morocco look to build on Qatar World Cup success in prestigious friendly against Brazil

The most successful national team in the history of World Cups have touched down in Tangiers. Yet when Brazil take on Morocco this weekend, it is the guests who find themselves aspiring to the status and the current football cachet of their hosts.

A Brazilian side much changed since they exited the last World Cup at the quarter-final stage are seeking a new identity and still looking for a new manager. Their opponents, semi-finalists in Qatar, meanwhile confidently chart a clear path upwards.

Saturday’s friendly, a prestigious fixture for Moroccan supporters to gather at and applaud the breakthrough achievement of three months ago, is the Atlas Lions’ first match since they narrowly lost the third-place play-off to Croatia in Al Rayyan in December.

It is an opportunity to set new goals and to put on display the dividends of becoming the first African – and first Mena – nation to have reached the last four of their sport’s most important event.

“It’s our ambition to keep the momentum,” said Walid Regragui, Morocco’s manager He is clear about the immediate targets: a successful Africa Cup of Nations in Ivory Coast next year, and, more broadly, that the higher bar for Africa at World Cups should be maintained. Regragui believes a team from his continent can be world champions in the next “15 to 20 years”.

The impressive Regragui has been busy these last three months, planning for the Afcon qualifying campaign that resumes in June with a trip to South Africa, and travelling around European clubs persuading players from the large Moroccan diaspora who have choices about which national team to represent that the wiser option is the one offered by him.

Morocco players during training ahead of their friendly against Brazil on