‘Morocco is the Best Team in Africa’: Lopetegui

The Atlas Lions performances during the 2018 World Cup Qualifiers are still mesmerizing international football figures. For Spain’s national football team coach, Julen Lopetegui, Morocco’s national football team is the best in Africa.

The international former Spaniard footballer held talks with Spanish daily sports news outlet Marca about his plans for the 2018 World Cup. In the interview, the 51-year old coach talked about La Roja’s Group B opponents: Iran, Morocco and Portugal.

As he was speaking about Morocco, Lopetegui said that he believes that Morocco is the best team in Africa, adding that the Atlas Lions “achieved their objective in a wonderful way, without letting in any goals and by knocking out Ivory Coast, one of Africa’s strongest teams.”

In the World Cup first round, Morocco has finished unbeaten in front of the continent’s tough teams, including Mali, Gabon and Cote d’Ivoire.

This is not the first time Lopetegui expresses his admiration for Morocco’s team performances and achievement. After the World Cup final draw, which took place in Moscow on December 1, Lopetegui said that  “one of the toughest teams, is the Moroccan squad, who excluded the Ivorian team in the World Cup qualifiers.”

Speaking about Spain’s future rivals, Lopetegui said that Portugal is the “champion of Europe” as it has “the best players in history, they have a great generation and they have a coach with a lot of experience.” For the Spaniard, the Iranian squad “has been the best team in Asia over the past five years, ahead of Japan and South Korea.”

Lopetegui also shared with Marca his vision of what is leadership. For him, leading means “convincing, specifically convincing everyone to give the best that they have in search of a common goal.” He added that football is “a team sport and one of our main strengths is that we have great players who are committed to our common goal, both with the ball and without it.”

Morocco will play against Spain on June 25 after facing Iran on June 15 and Portugal on June 20.