Morocco, the team that became the first African nation to reach the semifinals of the FIFA World Cup 2022 has been knocked out of the AFCON by South Africa. The result has produced shockwaves in the competition and has confirmed that this is a tournament of upsets.
All the quarterfinalists of this edition in the AFCON did not make it to the last eight in the last edition, such has been the nature of this tournament as all the favorites have been knocked out.
Evidence Makgopa gave the lead to South Africa in the 57th minute but Morocco had a chance to change their fate just five minutes before normal time when they were awarded a penalty. The weight of a nation was on Achraf Hakimi’s shoulders but the PSG star missed a glorious opportunity and rifled his kick over the crossbar, keeping the game at 1-0.
The misery of the Moroccans doubled as Sofyan Amrabat got a red card in stoppage time and his foul resulted in a goal through a freekick. Teboho Mokoena doubled the lead with a brilliant freekick to help South Africa get a historic win over the Casablanca giants.
South Africa boasted eight players in their starting eleven who played in the same club of their local league Mamelodi Sundowns. On the other hand, Morrocco was without their talismanic winger Hakim Ziyech and also Sofiane Boufal due to injuries.
After the disappointing exit of Senegal, Tunisia, Algeria, and Egypt, and the men from Casablanca were the fifth side who were termed as the favorites but failed to get past the Round of 16.
The South African side will now face Cape Verde, a team that managed to top their Group B points table despite having Egypt and Ghana in it, in the quarter-finals of AFCON on Saturday.
