The story of Qatar 2022 for Morocco was the story of everyone not expecting it. They were not expected to beat Belgium. They were not expected to beat Spain in the round of sixteen. They were not expected to beat Portugal — with Ronaldo and Bruno Fernandes and Leão and everything Portugal possessed — in the quarter-final. They were not expected to reach the semi-final against France, where France’s physical superiority finally proved decisive but where Morocco had spent four matches demonstrating a defensive organisation, a collective intensity, and a resilience under pressure that no previous African team had sustained at a World Cup.
Walid Regragui, the manager who built that team, is gone. He stepped down following defeat in the Africa Cup of Nations final — a tournament Morocco were expected to win after their 2022 World Cup breakthrough, a final they reached but lost. His departure was the end of a chapter.
Mohamed Ouahbi, who guided Morocco’s Under-20 team to a world title, is the new head coach. He has been in the role since March 2026 — three months before the World Cup begins. He is working with a squad that has changed significantly from the 2022 model, with three of its most creative attacking players unavailable.
Morocco’s question in this tournament is not whether they have quality — they do, in multiple positions — but whether a new manager, in three months, can install the collective intensity that made the Qatar semi-final possible, and whether the players who replaced Ziyech and En-Nesyri and Boufal can provide what those three brought in 2022.
The Group
Morocco are in Group C with Brazil, Scotland and Haiti. The match with Brazil is the most anticipated group-stage fixture involving either team — two squads of genuine quality, one of the traditional global powers and one of football’s most surprising semi-finalists from the previous tournament, meeting at the first stage in what would, in most tournament cycles, be a knockout round meeting.
Scotland, in their first World Cup since 1998, carry significant emotional weight but a squad that is unlikely to trouble the group’s two principal competitors. Haiti’s presence is a qualifying achievement.
Morocco need a result against Brazil to advance comfortably. They might advance on points behind Brazil even without it, depending on the Scotland and Haiti fixtures. But the Brazil match is the marker that will define how Ouahbi’s management is being received and whether the Atlas Lions are operating at the level the 2022 squad established.
The Missing Trio
Hakim Ziyech, thirty-three, was not selected. He has had a difficult season, spent partly at Galatasaray and characterised by inconsistency and reported tensions within the squad environment. His technical quality — the right-foot delivery from wide positions, the ability to find the through ball that opens defensive blocks, the set-piece precision — was central to Morocco’s attacking play in 2022. His absence is both explicable and significant.
Youssef En-Nesyri, twenty-eight, was not selected. He spent the season at Fenerbahçe and his form, while not catastrophic, did not meet the standard that Ouahbi set for the squad’s physical intensity and pressing contribution. His goals in 2022 — scored as a movement forward who arrived late into penalty areas — were important. The question of who replaces that goal threat is genuine.
Sofiane Boufal, thirty-one, was not selected. His creative play from the left flank gave Morocco width and unpredictability in Qatar. He is not in this squad.
Three of Morocco’s most notable 2022 contributors, all absent. The replacements are less celebrated but not unqualified.
The Players Who Are There
Achraf Hakimi, the PSG right back, is the player Morocco build around more than any other. His ability to combine defensive solidity with the attacking threat of a winger — the overlapping run that arrives in crossing positions at full pace, the capacity to hold width while the central midfielders compact, the authority in international football that comes from playing regularly in the Champions League — makes him the most important player in the squad.
Brahim Díaz, at Real Madrid, carries the creative responsibility in the central positions. Spanish-born to Moroccan parents, a player who has spent his career operating in the half-space and the pockets between lines, his technical quality and his ability to combine quickly in tight areas are the principal attacking tools Morocco carry in the absence of Ziyech’s delivery from wide.
Sofyan Amrabat, at Real Betis, remains the defensive midfield anchor — the player whose reading of space, whose ball recovery and whose ability to construct from the back give Morocco the platform that the 2022 performances were built upon. He is thirty, at the peak of his career, and his quality in this role is what makes the midfield function coherently when everything else is uncertain.
Bilal El Khannouss, at Stuttgart, represents the most interesting developmental story — a young midfielder of significant technical ability who has played regularly in the Bundesliga and who carries, at twenty-one, the potential to be the player Morocco build around for the next tournament cycle.
The Defensive Organisation
The defensive identity that made Qatar 2022 so remarkable was built on a low block that compressed space across the central channel and trusted the fullbacks — primarily Hakimi — to cover the wide areas without committing to challenges that would create gaps. The goals Morocco conceded in 2022 were few and hard-earned.
Ouahbi will attempt to maintain that defensive structure. The centre-back pairing of Nayef Aguerd and Jawad El Yamiq from 2022 has been partially disrupted by the squad changes, but the defensive instinct — to be compact, to be well-organised, to allow the opposition space they cannot use rather than the space that hurts — remains in the squad’s collective understanding.
Yassine Bounou, still one of the best goalkeepers in the world when operating at his best at Al Hilal, anchors the defensive structure with the authority that comes from his club career.
The New Manager Question
Ouahbi has three months of senior team experience behind him. He is managing a team that has significant history in this tournament, experienced players who know what the stage demands, and a country whose expectations escalated dramatically in the wake of 2022.
The concern is not his tactical ability — his U-20 success demonstrated that he can organise teams and prepare them for high-pressure knockout football. The concern is whether three months is enough time to install the specific collective identity — the defensive confidence, the press trigger timing, the transition patterns — that made Morocco’s 2022 performances cohesive rather than improvised.
Tournament success is partly technical and partly about the confidence that comes from knowing exactly how your team will respond to pressure, what everyone’s role is, what the signals are that trigger the collective action. Three months can produce the technical framework. Whether it produces the confidence is what the group stage will begin to show.
The Verdict
Morocco can advance from Group C. Whether they can challenge for the knockout rounds beyond the last sixteen depends on whether Ouahbi’s system can reproduce the defensive intensity and the transition quality that made 2022 so memorable, and whether Brahim Díaz and El Khannouss can provide the attacking creativity that Ziyech and Boufal brought to that tournament.
What happened in Qatar was not a ceiling. It was a statement about what African football can produce when the defensive organisation is elite and the collective confidence is high. The 2026 squad is different. The circumstances are different. Whether Ouahbi can find, in a different configuration, the same ceiling — that is the question Morocco will spend the next five weeks answering.