Eden Hazard and his men have been scripting the second golden era for the decorated Belgium National Football Team for the past decade. The World No. 2 team gave their best-ever performance in the previous World Cup edition and has begun FIFA 2022 with a win over Canada. Now, Match 27 saw Belgium come face-to-face with Morocco in Group F at the FIFA World Cup 2022. In a shocking turn of events, Morocco scored an unexpected 2-0 victory over Belgium at Al Thumama Stadium.
The match kicks in with the referee’s whistle and both teams begin attacking and counter-attacking either side with some early attempts at scoring an opening goal. It has been over 10 minutes of the first half and Belgium is trying to maintain dominance over the Moroccans as Hazard Brother Eden and Thorgan kept working in tandem for the Belgians. Achraf Hakimi spoils a potential chance as he sends an open scoring chance over the bar. It was a disappointing miss since the PSG star had a clear opportunity to open the score count for Morocco.
In the closing moments of the first half, Morocco scored their first goal of the match as Hakim Ziyech stuns Belgium with an amazing free-kick goal as he curled the ball in, which went past goalkeeper Courtois into the nets. With the entire team celebrating and the crowd cheering for their side, tragedy struck as a VAR check revealed an offside by one of the Moroccan players. The goal was denied much to the shock and protests of the Moroccan players and coach. End of the first half, the score stands nil for both teams.
After a dramatic first half that saw a beautiful free-kick goal being denied, and not a single goal from either side, both teams now got the second half underway with 45 more minutes to change the outcome of the match. At 81 minutes, Star striker Romelu Lukaku is called in to replace Meunier with a huge ovation from the crowd. He is leading the attack of the Red Devils, and the Moroccans need to be extremely careful while Lukaku is on the field.
5 minutes have been added to the second half and Belgium realizes the severity of the situation, now desperately looking to score the equalizer as they only have 3 minutes plus stoppage time to level the score. In the last-moment tussles, Morocco gets a corner-kick opportunity, however, Belgium does well to deny them another goal-scoring chance.
2 minutes into the extra time, Morocco scored their second goal of the match, taking an indisputable 2-0 lead over the Red Devils. A sublime pass from Hakim Ziyech is converted into a rocket by Zakaria Aboukhlal into the Belgian nets. Soon after, the referee blows his whistle, signaling the end of a fierce match that turned into a fairytale victory for Morocco.
Morocco has upstaged Roberto Martinez’s Belgium 2-0 in its second group game of the Qatar World Cup. Goals from Abdelhamid Sabiri and Abdelhamid Sabir guided Morocco to a famous win and climb to the top spot in Group F. The defeat quite seemingly means that the Red Devils have failed to secure an early berth in the knockout round of the FIFA World Cup.
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