DOHA - Morocco coach Walid Regragui said he believes an African team will win the World Cup in the next “15 to 20 years” after his team finished fourth in Qatar.

The Atlas Lions, who became the first African World Cup semi-finalists in history, lost Saturday’s third-place play-off 2-1 against 2018 runners-up Croatia but captured the imagination in Qatar.

The next World Cup in 2026, held across the United States, Canada and Mexico, will be expanded to 48 teams and Africa will have at least nine slots – up from five at present.

“With nine participants, we’re going to learn. In 15, 20 years, I’m sure an African team will win the World Cup because we’ll have learnt,” said Regragui.

“We have a stage to get past. We need to build on that, with hard work and desire. This DNA is not just being built for Morocco, but for the continent.”

Morocco finished top of a group including Croatia and Belgium, who came third at the 2018 World Cup, before knocking out Spain and Portugal to reach the last four.

Their run was ended in the semi-finals by defending champions France, but Regragui has urged his players to back up their historic display by winning next year’s Africa Cup of Nations.

“I said to the players in the changing room, ‘If you want to go down in history, then you’re going to have to win the Africa Cup of Nations’,” said Regragui.

“We need to dominate our continent.”

Morocco have been crowned African champions just once, in 1976, but their performances at the World Cup demonstrated they are a team on the rise under Regragui, who was appointed only in August.

“Tomorrow morning, we’ll take stock and all realise we’ve pulled off a fantastic achievement here. We’ve earned a great deal of experience in a short space of time,” said Regragui.

“We’ve gone further than expected but it’s not enough. It needs to set an example for the future. I hope that everybody (in Africa) will learn from the experience.

“We’ve got a great future ahead of us and we’ll keep moving forward.

“Of course we have the objective of winning the World Cup one day. There’s going to be more pressure on us going forward and hopefully there will be more African teams following our example.

“We’ve shown we can go toe to toe with top teams. Really very small details determine these games.”

Arab world also dreaming

The positive results were not limited to the Atlas Lions.

Though Morocco was the only Arab nation to pass the group stage, even the exit of Saudi Arabia and Tunisia came after two shock wins.

The exception was Qatar, who became the second host nation to exit in the first round after South Africa in 2010.

Saudi Arabia achieved one of the biggest-ever surprises in World Cup history, when they came back from behind to win 2-1 against Argentina, who took the lead through a Lionel Messi penalty.

As for Tunisia, they defeated France, although the Europeans had a reshuffled line-up with star striker Kylian Mbappe only coming on as a substitute.

“The Tunisian national team’s victory over France will be in history books,” said Khalil Belhaj, a 41-year-old Tunisian fan.

“However, Tunisia’s victory over France remains a moral victory against a team who secured qualification and played with a reserve team.”

Before Qatar 2022, Arab teams had won 10 out of 73 matches, via eight different teams, while this time they achieved half that number again: five wins in 16 matches.

Arabs achieved their previous best results when Tunisia beat Mexico 3-1 in 1978, Algeria stunned West Germany 2-1 in 1982, Morocco defeated Portugal 3-1 in 1986, and Saudi Arabia beat Belgium 1-0 in 1994.

Along with Morocco, Arab teams were superbly supported at the Middle East’s first World Cup.

It will take another four years to see if Arab teams can achieve similar results, but perhaps after Fifa’s decision to increase the number of participating teams from 32 to 48, they will have a better chance in four years’ time. AFP, REUTERS