Atlas Lionesses become latest Morocco team to earn a World Cup upset

Morocco’s teams are getting used to upsetting higher-ranked opponents on soccer’s biggest stage.

With a 1-0 win over South Korea in Adelaide, South Australia on Sunday, the Atlas Lionesses earned their first Women’s World Cup victory in their debut tournament. The No. 72-ranked Morocco upset No. 17 South Korea behind a complete defensive performance and its first World Cup goal: a glancing header from Ibtissam Jraïdi off Hanane Aït El Haj’s cross in the 6th minute.

Despite an opening 6-0 loss to Germany, the Atlas Lionesses are in contention for a spot in the knockout stage ahead of their last group game against Colombia on Friday.

“We need to savor the win tonight, all together,” Morocco head coach Reynald Pedros said. “From tomorrow, this game is behind us. What’s important is what is going to happen against Colombia.”

In the men’s World Cup last year, Morocco strung together its own run of upsets. The team advanced to the round of 16 for the first time since 1986 and became the first African or Arab nation to reach the World Cup semifinals. The team caught attention with wins over Belgium, Canada in the group stage, followed by knockout wins over Spain and Portugal before a semifinal loss to France.

The women’s team has already made Women’s World Cup history as the first Arab or North African nation to qualify.

“We have the same sense of determination and motivation, that this is a dream that’s going to come true, as with the Qatar World Cup, where the men were able to make history,” Morocco captain Ghizlane Chebbak said before the tournament started. “We hope we can replicate the same achievements of the men’s team.”

Defender Nouhaila Benzina missed Morocco’s debut last week but made history Sunday as the first player to wear a hijab while competing at a senior-level global tournament.

A FIFA ban on playing in religious head coverings in its sanctioned games for “health and safety reasons” was overturned in 2014.

Against South Korea, Benzina played a part as Morocco rebounded from the lopsided loss to two-time champion Germany — a match Pedros described as “David versus Goliath.”

Shifting the team’s mindset and rotating in “fresh legs” allowed the Atlas Lionesses to get off “to a blinding start” and create chances, Pedros said. “We were very active, very aggressive.”

The Atlas Lionesses surprised the soccer world by upsetting the eleven-time Africa Cup of Nations champion Nigeria on penalties in the semifinals of the AFCON 2022 tournament. Morocco hosted the tournament and finished runner-up to South Africa after a 2-1 loss with over 45,000 in attendance, earning a spot at World Cup being co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand.

In 2020, the Royal Moroccan Football Federation laid out a four-year women’s soccer investment plan including youth development programs and funding for women’s professional clubs, in hopes that its women’s team, which had not qualified for AFCON in two decades, could make a statement on the global stage. Morocco will host the AFCON tournament again in 2024.

“We can have more and more players feeding into the national team,” Pedros said of the federation’s development. “We’re talking about us, the first team, the under-20s, the under-17s. We’re talking about very long standing work we’re starting right now.”

Coming from a region passionate about men’s football but historically slower to embrace the women’s game, Pedros and his players recognize the impact that each Moroccan match has.

“Those that love football have male role models,” Pedros said. “What we want in Morocco is that those that love football have female role models as well.”