Qlamqtar 2022 FIFA World Cup | Profile | MOROCCO: Glorifying and praising Allah by praying to Him 5 times a 4-year World Cup cycle

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***I DON’T HAVE FIFA’S PRIOR WRITTEN CONSENT TO USE, TALK, THINK OR EVEN YELL AT RANDOS FROM MY BALCONY ABOUT ANY NAMES, COUNTRIES OR EVENTS MENTIONED IN MY FIFA WORLD CUP QATAR 2022 COVERAGE, SO FOR COPYRIGHT REASONS FROM HERE ON IN, THE EVENT WILL BE REFERRED TO AS QLAMQTAR 2022.***

the Qlamqtar 2022 World Cup’s only about 11 moons away (depending on your own set of lunar circumstances), and the first ever World Cup held in the Arab world promises to be a real doozy. World Cup history is a tale resplendent with stories of triumph against the odds, childhood dreams coming true and unsung heroes becoming legends. As well as dumb idiot losers, wanker fuck ups and teams that are just total bullshit.

But how shall ye learn about these legends, losers and teams that are just total bullshit? Well look no further my wayward friend as I profile all 211 FIFA nations eligible for World Cup qualification. Today, I take a look at Morocco, who’ve qualified for the World Cup five times.

Each point of the star on Morocco’s flag represents a World Cup where God just wouldn’t be cool and, just like, help a Moroccan brother out, ya know?

MOROCCO
Glorifying and praising Allah by praying to Him 5 times a 4-year World Cup cycle

Was it really a surprise that Iran–whose people pray 7300 times every 4-year world cup cycle–defeated Morocco at the 2018 World Cup (by an own goal, of course–what else?)?

Nickname: The Atlas Lions
FIFA Ranking: 28 (Nov 2021)
FIFA World Cup 2022 Qualification result: Qualified

Morocco’s overwhelming Sunni Islamic majority follow a more moderate ‘middle-path’ to Islam, typically looked down upon by those in more traditional and fundamentalist Islamic countries. Whereas the people of, say, Saudi Arabia or UAE pray five times a day and adhere strictly to the 5 pillars of Islam (ie. declaration of faith, obligatory prayer, donation, fasting during Ramadan and pilgrimage to Mecca), Moroccans take the more chilled route, praying five times every 4 years, and when it comes to adhering to the five pillars, well, they’re all like, ‘Two’s enough’. That’ll do. Or maybe even just half of one’s cool?

This approach is good and all if you’ve got an active lifestyle or stuff’s crazy at work right now, and you just don’t have time to be praising The Real Truth non-stop, but critics say that it’s this lax approach to their faith that has resulted in The One And Only rarely answering the teams prayers come World Cup time (even causing them to lose games to Islamic neighbours via 95th minute own goals–see above).

To Moroccans, the number of prayers required for a righteous life is kinda like ‘Ugh, seriously?’. But it could’ve been even more of a drag though, because initially God had prescribed 50 a day, and it was only down to Moses twisting Muhammad’s arm over and over that he went to God and negotiated the number down to five. And there’s no doubt that Moroccans consider the Prophet Muhammad a rad dude n’ shit, but man, they just kinda wish that when Moses said to go back and request God to make it even less than five, he had just had the goddamn stones to do it, for fuck’s sake.

Morocco’s irregular pray-when-you-feel-like-it-or-after-you-lose hasn’t helped them advance past the first round of the World Cup

One to watch: Western Sahara’s sweetass phosphate supply

Western Sahara’s lovely lumps

Phosphate is the key ingredient used in agricultural fertilisers across the entire globe, and over 70% of the world’s reserves of the nutrient are found within Moroccan territory (the next closest is China with 5%). But just because Morocco already has a huge piece of the planet’s phosphate cake (and therefore–unless a scalable feasible synthetic alternative is found– controls the future of all food production), doesn’t mean they can’t eat Western Sahara’s phosphate supply too. Because damn, although they’re happy with their own phosphate reserves, shit, those in the disputed territory would look SO DAMN GOOD on it. You know you want it, Western Sahara, c’mon, give it up, girl.

The highpoint: Should’ve been through to the second round, 1998 World Cup (if it weren’t for stupid Norway)

Morocco’s 1998 World Cup campaign was an overwhelming success, with a narrow loss to Brazil, a draw with Norway and then a 3-0 pummeling of Scotland, enough to take them through to the second round for the first ever time.

But wait, no actually, it wasn’t, because GD Norway beat Brazil in the other group game. Yeah , GD Norway. At least Mustapha Hadji scored a goal for the ages.

Learn the lingo & speak like a local!

A couple Moroccan men cast their eyes across the border to Western Sahara

Upcoming matches

WORLD CUP QATAR 2022 | GROUP STAGE
23 Nov 2022
MOROCCO 🇲🇦 x 🇭🇷 CROATIA

27 Nov 2022
BELGIUM 🇧🇪 x 🇲🇦 MOROCCO

1 Dec 2022
CANADA 🇨🇦 x 🇲🇦 MOROCCO

AFRICAN CUP OF NATIONS CAMEROON 2021
Jan 10, 2022
MOROCCO 🇲🇦 x 🇬🇭 GHANA

Jan 14, 2022
MOROCCO 🇲🇦 x 🇰🇲 COMOROS

Jan 18, 2022
GABON 🇬🇦 x 🇲🇦 MOROCCO