History making CAF representatives Morocco will end the year smiling all the way to the bank while sitting in the comforts of being the best movers on the FIFA rankings.
The North Africans' achievements are of interest to South Africa with the two nations in the same group in the qualifiers for the 2023 AFCON finals to be held in Ivory Coast.
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The Atlas Lions have already secured one of two qualification tickets in Group K which also features Liberia.
They overcame Bafana 2-1 in June and will be travelling to South Africa next June for the return leg.
There are three teams in the group following the disqualification of Zimbabwe who remain suspended by FIFA.
For now, though worth noting is that after pocketing R432 million for finishing fourth at the FIFA World Cup, Morocco will be the highest climbers in the latest FIFA rankings to be released on Thursday.
Several credible sites including football-rankings.info have released the projected rankings which has The Atlas Lions moving into position up from 22 following their World Cup exploits where they became the first African country to reach the semi-finals.
The projected rankings show that Brazil will remain top of the pile with world champions Argentina moving into second while France move into third with Belgium dropping to fourth and England remaining fifth.
Senegal will keep their place in the top but move down to 19th.
Bafana Bafana will remain stagnant in position 67 in these FIFA rankings which still have Nigeria still holding the record of reaching the highest position by an African country after reaching the amazing heights of fifth in April 1994.
The biggest lesson for Bafana to pick from Morocco was just how many players they had in their squad playing in top leagues around Europe which provides the highest level of competitive football on the globe.
Only three (Yahya Jabrane, Yahia Attiyat Allah, and Ahmed Reda Tagnaouti) of the 26 players in the Atlas Lions squad play locally and are all attached to CAF Champions League holders Wydad Casablanca.
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