Morocco made history in the 2022 World Cup. They are the first African country to make it into the semifinals, but also the first Muslim country to go into the world cup semifinals. I’m so proud as an African and a Muslim for the Moroccan team to have made it that far. Their team had a lot of soccer fans out of their seats and proud of the team they’ve become.

Morocco is a pretty religious country. The Morocco’s team follow Islam — in games you can see players performing duas and going into sujood. Dua is a prayer to Allah (SWT) sending for permission and a message to Allah (SWT) and going into sujood is a stage while performing prayer. Morocco making history like this brings all the different African countries together because every single African out there is rooting for Morocco to win. This is impacting others because they don’t hide or feel ashamed of their religion whatsoever.

Morocco made it to the semi-finals of the 2022 World Cup by beating not only Portugal but Spain, Belgium and Canada as well. During the Portugal and Morocco game, it was a close but since the goalkeeper, Yassine Bounou, was on his A-game, he made sure his skills were brought to light and he tried to carry his teammates out to the semi finals. The most recent game was Morocco vs. France. I found this funny because Morocco went against their colonizers, making it colonizers vs. the colonized. 

France won against Morocco, but I believe it was an unfair game because the referee was pretty biased. France will play Argentina soon. Since Morocco lost, they have to go against Croatia to see who’ll be in third place. In the eyes of a fellow African and Muslim, it’s really eye-widening to see people like me going out and achieving such success that people are really hesitent towards. Morocco is holding the weight of a lot of African and muslim countries because of the history they’ve been making.

The 2022 World Cup changed a lot of people’s point of view on teams. Morocco showed a lot of emotions and showed how hard they’ve tried, plus social media made a lot of small things noticeable and viral. Like Zakaria Aboukhal making Dua before entering a game, Morocco making it that far shows just how much work and effort you need to put in while making a name for your own country. Islam has a really huge impact on this as well. The Moroccon team showed that religion isn’t the main picture when it comes to the World Cup. 

A lot of people and fans are waiting to see the result of tomorrow’s game. For Morocco’s team to go into sujood really shows how deeply important soccer is to them. They made a huge impact on the world and the internet. Hopefully other small countries try to follow in their footsteps.