Clash of the Iberian Peninsula : 🇲🇦 🆚 🇵🇹
As the two teams battle for the opportunity to play in a Semi-Final of a World Cup here are some of the main takeaways & talking points.
Midfielder Rúben Neves returns and starts in front of William Carvalho
Morocco can become the first team from Africa to reach the semi-finals of the World Cup, if they beat the Portuguese
21 year old Goncalo Ramos starts again after scoring a stunning hat-trick in the 6-1 win against the Swiss🇨🇭
Portugal's Goncalo Ramos is the first player to score a hat-trick in his first WC start since Germany's Miroslav Klose in 2002
Christiano Ronaldo left on the bench, again‼️
Is Bruno Fernandes officially Official as the new man in charge for Portugal and Manchester United❓
Will CR7 finally get off the mark⁉️ Messi scored his first goal of the tournament against Austrilia at the same stadium, Ahmed bin Ali Stadium
This is the third meeting of the two countries, all being in previously WC, 1986 & 2018 respectively. Morroco won the first encounter and Portugal the second
There has been 11 WC knockout matches between Europe and African teams. 9-2 in favor of Europe with this Morocco team being one of those two wins. The last round against Spain & Senegal won over Sweden in 2002
Morocco has beaten Croatia and Spain already in this tournament
This is Portugal third Quater-Final in their WC history, they have progressed in all of the previous appearances
Morocco are on a 5 match unbeaten streak, 2 WINS & 3 DRAWS
Walid Regragui, the Moroccan manager, is the 1️⃣st African 🌍 coach to take charge of a World Cup Quater-Final team. If this doesn't get him a job in Europe, something is 🆙 👏🏿
Morocco have 3 clean sheets of 4 matches in the 2022 World Cup
