As the final whistle blew at the Al Thumama Stadium in Doha, it felt as though it could have been the Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium in Rabat, or Stade Mohamed V in Casablanca.
The Moroccan fans made it feel like a home game as their team got the better of Belgium to add three points to their tally in Group F.
Their first point was a deserved one against Croatia. Walid Regragui’s side controlled Croatia’s midfield trio of Luka Modric, Marcelo Brozovic and Mateo Kovacic. This time, it was Kevin De Bruyne and Eden Hazard’s turn.
Against Morocco’s regular 4-3-3, Belgium’s 3-2-4-1 made complete sense. By using the No 10s, Hazard and De Bruyne, Roberto Martinez’s side could theoretically overload Sofyan Amrabat in the centre of the pitch, and find their two star players between the lines. However, a small tweak from Regragui and his staff prevented Belgium from reaching either Hazard or De Bruyne, limiting the Belgians in open play.
The adjustment was to push Noussair Mazraoui forward, closer to De Bruyne. That achieved two things: 1) it prevented De Bruyne from being a free option and 2) matched Belgium’s four midfielders from Belgium.
Now, Morocco had both De Bruyne and Hazard covered — Mazraoui pushing to mark the Manchester City player and Amrabat free to shift to the right to mark Hazard.
Mazraoui executed this role perfectly, keeping his distance but always close enough to press De Bruyne whenever he got the ball.
Here, you can see Belgium’s quartet against Morocco’s midfield three and De Bruyne (No 7) looking as if he is free…
…so when the throw-in is played, Amadou Onana plays the ball into De Bruyne…
…but Mazraoui is there and ready to press the Belgian…
…intercepting the ball to stop Belgium’s attack.
In another example, Mazraoui’s positioning is on the same line as Amrabat — pushing forward to make sure Hazard doesn’t receive the ball comfortably with Amrabat closer to De Bruyne on the other side. Youri Tielemans tries to play the pass into Hazard…
…but again, Mazraoui intercepts and despite the ball falling to De Bruyne, Nayef Aguerd stops the attack.
The West Ham United defender also had a role to play, whenever Amrabat was far from Hazard, the centre-back moved up towards the Real Madrid player and prevented him from having time on the ball.
Yet the task facing Morocco was far from simple, as they knew that Belgium would try to use their wing-backs to free De Bruyne or Hazard. When that happened, Hakim Ziyech and Sofiane Boufal’s roles off the ball really came to the fore.
With Thomas Meunier pushing high, Mazraoui can’t continue covering De Bruyne and signals for his team-mates to pick him up. Amrabat is closer to Hazard…
…so it’s Boufal who drops and goes inside to mark De Bruyne, allowing Mazraoui to move out wide to face Meunier…
…while keeping Amrabat in his place, screening the defensive line. Meunier’s ball for De Bruyne here is too heavy, but the important thing is that the Belgium midfielder is tracked and not attacking the space freely.
Here’s a second example of the situation. Meunier is calling for the pass from Toby Alderweireld but Mazraoui can see the move unfolding in front of him. He signals to Boufal to pick up De Bruyne (yellow)…
…and the Moroccan forward drops, forcing Alderweireld to play the safe option into Onana.
Belgium then circulate the ball, and we come back to the same situation again. Mazraoui is narrow and inside the pitch to be closer to De Bruyne (yellow), but aware that Meunier is open and the pass from Alderweireld is possible.
If Mazraoui moves out wide and De Bruyne is free, Alderweireld will have reached his goal. That’s why as Mazraoui moves out wide, Boufal tucks inside to prevent a pass into De Bruyne. And the result is that Alderweireld plays the pass that Morocco want, into Meunier…
…who Mazraoui is already closing down with Boufal dropping in his place to mark De Bruyne. Having no progressive passing options, Meunier has to reset and pass the ball backwards.
The roles of Boufal and Mazraoui helped Amrabat massively, allowing him to focus on one of the two No 10s and not get dragged all over the midfield. Even if Amrabat was far, Boufal knew when to tuck inside…
…and Mazraoui knew when to move up to mark De Bruyne.
Perhaps the best defensive sequence in the game came in the 58th minute with the soundtrack of the Moroccan thunderclap in the background. Here, Ziyech’s positioning inside the pitch to block the passing lane into De Bruyne forces Timothy Castagne to play the ball out wide to Thorgan Hazard…
…then once the left wing-back has the ball, Ziyech moves out towards him and Selim Amallah drops to mark De Bruyne. With no progressive options, Hazard plays the ball horizontally to Onana…
…who is thinking about finding his brother, but Amrabat is there in addition to Romain Saiss and Azzedine Ounahi. All three are ready to pounce.
Lacking options, the Everton midfielder circulates the ball backwards and when it reaches Axel Witsel, he can’t find De Bruyne and Hazard either. One is marked by Mazraoui while the other has Amrabat nearby.
The thing about tournament football is that sometimes all you need is one goal. Especially with the low attacking quality on show in this World Cup. Therefore, when Abdelhamid Sabiri put Morocco ahead via a free kick, it was time to shut up shop for Regragui’s side, who moved into a 5-4-1 for the remainder of the game.
In open play, Morocco nullified Belgium by making sure De Bruyne and Hazard were restricted in how often they received the ball and how much time they got when they did have possession. Regragui should be concerned by defensive set pieces but that’s for another day.
Today, it’s a party in Rabat.
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