Whole world can be proud of Morocco, says Regragui

Morocco leave Qatar disappointed but filled with pride at having written their names into the history books by becoming the first African team to reach the World Cup semi-finals, said coach Walid Regragui.

Morocco were beaten 2-0 by France on Wednesday and will go into a playoff for third place with Croatia while the French will face Argentina in the final.

"We realise that we made a great achievement already," Regragui told reporters. "We know that the media, social media, and on TV, we saw the pictures, and we saw that everyone was proud of us in our country.

"We're disappointed for the Moroccan people tonight, we wanted to keep the dream alive. But we're pleased with what we've achieved. We felt that we could have even gone even further but these small details help real champions, which we saw tonight, of course."

Regragui told his players he was proud of them.

"His Majesty was also proud, the Moroccan people were proud," he said. "I think the world as a whole is proud of this Moroccan team because we show great desire. We work hard, and we played honest, hard-working football.

"I think we've given a good image of Morocco and a good image of African football and that was also important for us, because we were representing our country and our continent."

Morocco, who came into the match with the best defensive record in the tournament, conceded from France's first serious attack five minutes into the game.

"Today, if I have regrets, it's the start of the game," Regragui added. "We started quite poorly and we conceded a goal very quickly and that made the difference.

"They allowed us to have quite a lot of possession, but we made too many mistakes to cause them problems."

Regragui thought his team improved in the second half.

"We