Can Morocco beat Portugal to make history?
Morocco, which can be called the strongest dark horse this year, set a new record in team history and entered the top 8 for the first time without being favored by most football fans. But is Morocco’s wonderful performance all due to luck? The answer is of course, no. Although Morocco’s newly appointed coach, Walid Regragui, took over the team only 100 days before the start of the World Cup, the team has yet to experience defeat. What is more impressive is that, except for the first own goal of this year, Morocco has never been scored by an opponent in the regular season, which shows its strong defense.
Portugal, which has maintained a high status recently, has won a total of 7 victories in the last 10 games. In these 10 games, Portugal scored a total of 26 goals, while only allowing the opponent to score 7 goals, showing a very good performance on both the offensive and defensive sides. In the round of 16, Cristiano Ronaldo played as a substitute for the first time in an international competition. Ronaldo’s absence did not affect the result of the game. Gonçalo Ramos, who started for the first time in his career, staged a “hat trick” that caught everyone’s attention. On the other hand, whether Ronaldo returns to the starting lineup would be unknown for the team’s victory or defeat.
According to the data, it shows that Portugal is an offensive team, while Morocco tends to have a high defensive intensity. Although Morocco is quite impressive defensively, at the same time their possession rate is low. This also means that if Morocco wants to continue to stage dark horse surprises, it must be based on a good defense and grasp the opportunity to counterattack. This will possibly allow football gamblers to make a lot of money.