Morocco head coach Walid Regragui has bizarrely taken aim at Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola amid criticism of the Atlas Lions' style of play at the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
Morocco will be looking to further etch their name in the tournament's record books when they come up against reigning world champions France on Wednesday night for a spot in the final against Argentina, who ran away 3-0 winners over Croatia in the first semi-final on Tuesday night.
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Despite overcoming footballing powerhouses such as Belgium, Spain, and Portugal en route to the last four of the competition, some criticism has been levelled against the African outfit for the defensive manner in which they approach games.
In the last 16 clash against the 2010 World Cup winners, the north Africans had only 23% of ball possession throughout the 120 minutes of action before winning 3-0 on penalties.
Their quarter-final tie against Portugal saw them have only a 26% share of the ball but held on for a narrow 1-0 victory over the European nation to become the first African nation to reach the semi-finals of the competition.
Speaking at a press conference ahead of his side's crunch tie against France, manager Regragui responded to claims that Morocco play too conservatively, stating that his team is "going to play like we know how" on Wednesday night.
According to the Manchester Evening News, the former Wydad Casablanca boss then went on to hit back at the idea that possession-based football is the best way to play, and even appeared to take a slight dig at Guardiola, who is synonymous with this style of football.
"Possession is extraordinarily misleading – you can have 70% possession and you only shoot twice," he said.
"There's expected goals too: 'We should have won, we had four expected goals!
"We're here to win, that's all.
"It's certain when you have Kevin De Bruyne or Bernardo Silva that you have the ball, Pep Guardiola drove me crazy too."
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The 47-year-old also revealed that he was inspired by Les Bleus' conservative approach to the 2018 World Cup in Russia, which saw them being crowned champions.
"France made me dream in 2018 in the way they played, Deschamps understood how to do it."
He then added: "Let's stop with the statistics."
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