On Saturday, many thousands of people took to the streets of major French cities to celebrate before the match between France and England had even kicked off. And this wasn’t due to the possibility the form of Les Bleus may mean that football’s coming home to the country that invented the FIFA World Cup.

It was the success of Morocco against Portugal in the Saturday’s first quarter final that led to fans assembling in large numbers on the Champs-Elysées in Paris and the Grand-Place in Lille. Following their victory against Portugal, Morocco have now beaten three of Europe’s most fancied teams at the World Cup. They also triumphed against Spain in the second round and Belgium in the group stage in Qatar.
The success of the team known as the Atlas Lions has been a source of immense pride for Moroccans around the world, and notably in France. However, there Moroccan squad competing in Qatar perhaps doesn’t have quite as many players with French connections as some might expect given its colonial links with France and the presence of several million people of Moroccan descent in France.
Morocco’s national coach Walid Wegragui was born in Corbeil-Essonnes, which is almost 30km south of Paris. He has dual nationality and spent the majority of his playing career in France, although also played for two years in Spain with Racing Santander. He was assistant national coach of Morocco from 2012-13 before training Fath US, who play in Rabat, and also Casablanca’s Wydad Athletic Club. In between, he had a brief spell as coach of Al-Duhail Sports Club in Doha, Qatar.
A recent article by French sports daily L’Équipe has mentioned that the 26-man Moroccan squad competing at this summer’s World Cup includes 14 players born outside the country, but only two of them – Sofiane Boufal and Romain Saïss – were born in France. Chelsea winger Hakim Ziyech is one of four players born in the Netherlands and is joined by a further four players born in Belgium. Paris Saint-Germain’s Achraf Hakimi is one of two players born in Spain and is joined by Italy-born Walid Cheddira. The group stage of the tournament saw goalkeeper Yassine Bounou play against Canada, the country in which he was born. However, Bounou and his family left Montreal when he was only three years old and moved to Casablanca.
The current Moroccan World Cup squad thus has a lot fewer players born in France than those of some other African countries to have competed in the World Cup finals. Although the 23-man Senegal squad that reached the quarter finals of the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea also featured two players born in France, Algeria’s 23-man squad who were eliminated in the second round of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil included 16 players born in France.
The fact that players born and brought up in France have at times played for the country of birth of their parents or grandparents has at times provoked debate. In 2011, the investigative website Mediapart obtained a recording of a meeting in which several leading figures at the French Football Federation (FFF) discussed limiting the number of players with dual nationality at youth academies.
However, to focus on players born in France who play for a country other than France is only one part of the picture. French teams that have competed in major tournaments have on occasion included players born outside of France. The France squad that won the World Cup in 1998 included Patrick Vieira, who was born in Dakar (Senegal) but moved to France aged eight. He was joined in the team by Marcel Desailly, who was born in Accra (Ghana) but arrived in France when he was four years old. France’s 1998 World Cup winners also included David Trezeguet, a striker born in Normandy but who moved to Argentina aged two with his Argentine-born parents and did not return to France again until the age of eighteen when he signed for Monaco.
Twenty years on, France’s 2018 World Cup winners in Russia included Samuel Umtiti and Steve Mandanda; the former was born in Yaoundé (Cameroon) and the latter in Kinshasha (Zaire). In short, migration flows mean that there are many players who are eligible to play for more than one country by virtue of their own place of birth, their parents or grandparents’ place of birth, or by virtue of naturalization.
Much has been made of Morocco becoming the first African team to reach the World Cup semi finals, going a round further than Cameroon n 1990, Senegal in 2002, or Ghana in 2010. However, it it is worth asking if too much has been made of this or at least reflecting on Morocco’s achievements have been discussed by non-African journalists.
In a book published in April 2022, the author and journalist Dipo Faloyin – who was born in Chicago and brought up in Lagos – argues that African sporting identities are at times conflated in a manner that those of other countries are not. He makes the following observation in Africa Is Not A Country: Breaking Stereotypes of Modern Africa:
“International tournaments such as the Olympics and the World Cup are some of the few times African countries are acknowledged individually for their talents. But even then there is a temptation to bunch the region together, and write about African athletes in the same way: having the all the speed, power and strength, but little of the thought, cunning, intelligence, nuance or precision. All chaos, no order.”
Morocco’s success so far at this year’s World Cup is clearly based on – among other factors – organization and discipline. Their defensive organization has been praised by pundits. In their five matches so far they have only conceded one goal, and managed to keep out the combined attacking talents of Portugal, Spain, Belgium, and Croatia. In some of these games, their opponents have had much of the position but Morocco’s ability to create and take chances in front of goal has secured successes that have led many to sit up and take notice.
Dipo Faloyin has said in the aforementioned book that “there’s a lazy tendency to assume that Africa is united in its sporting failures or successes, in a way that other continents are not”. He cites as an example UK channel ITV’s commentary of the match between South Africa and Mexico at the 2010 World Cup hosted in Africa, an in particular the moment when a goal was greeted by the commentator exalting at a “Goal for South Africa!” that was also “A goal for all of Africa”. As Faloyin observes, commentators rarely talk about “a goal for all of Europe” or “ever contemplate Brazilians willingly celebrating a Lionel Messi goal for Argentina”.
Whether or not Morocco win against France this Wednesday, they have already exceeded a great many people’s expectations both within their own country and around the world. In the years ahead, it will be interesting to see not just what impact their achievements have on perceptions of Moroccan football – and African more broadly – but also within Morocco. For example, what will the impact be on domestic football in Morocco?
It will also be intriguing to see whether this summer’s exploits will boost the chance of Morocco winning the rights to host the World Cup. Only Germany – who has bid to host the World Cup finals eight times – has applied more times than Morocco. Morocco has so far made five unsuccessful bids to host the finals and already expressed an interest in organizing the 2030 tournament, potentially jointly with Algeria and Tunisia.
Whilst it remains uncertain whether or not Wednesday’s World Cup semi-final will lead to celebrations across Morocco, the situation in France seems slightly clearer. We are again highly likely to see fans taking to the streets of major French cities to celebrate after the match, but whether they will be supporters brandishing the French or Moroccan flag remains to be seen.