Fever pitch excitement as Morocco becomes first team from Arab nations in FIFA Women’s World Cup

The Lionesses of the Atlas Mountains have set out to hunt down their prey. Will they succeed or will their prey manage to escape their clutches? The Lionesses being referred to are the Morocco women’s football team which carries that nickname. The team has become the first women’s team from an Arab nation to qualify for the FIFA Women’s World Cup football tournament. The event is scheduled to be held in Australia and New Zealand from July 20 to August 20.

After the sensational performance of the Morocco men’s team in the FIFA men’s World Cup last year, expectations are at fever pitch that the women will replicate the feat of the men. It may be recalled that Morocco defied all expectations at the 2022 World Cup by defeating high ranking teams such as Belgium, Spain and Portugal. They thus became the first African nation to ever reach the semi-finals. Now the question on everyone’s lips is: Can the women do it too?

Within their region, the Moroccan women’s biggest rivals are Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt. In 2020, the Lionesses of Morocco managed to win the UNAF Women’s Cup by mauling Algeria 2–0 to top the final standings. This year for the first time in its history, Morocco has qualified for the women’s World Cup.

The team is coached by Frenchman Reynald Pedros and many of the players have had experience of playing in the European leagues. The captain of the team is 32-year-old Ghizlane Chebbak whose father Larbi Chebbak was also a Moroccan footballer in the 1970s.

According to an AP report from Rabat (Morocco), the national women team’s upcoming World Cup appearance has heightened excitement throughout the land.

“Now the media exposure for the women’s team and the wide appreciation that followed, has breathed new life into women’s soccer in Morocco,” said Khadija Illa, President of the national women’s soccer league. “We are at the beginning of the road but playing in the world cup will take us a long way ahead,” she added.

“In the beginning, our girls were told that you belong in the home or in the kitchen. Girls would have to wait for their fathers or brothers to go away before they could sneak out to play football. But now we see that a brother brings his sister or a father brings his daughter to the practice grounds,” she said.

However, according to the report, not all like the prospect of women playing football. In Egypt, 61-year-old Hassan Yousef argued that soccer is a rough game that is not fit for women. Dr. Husam Mokhtar, a Libyan in Egypt, said he doubts women’s soccer can become as popular as men’s, adding that soccer is a men’s game. But his 13-year-old daughter, Miral, disagreed. “Every sport should be played by everyone,” she said.

Morocco will have to face some of the strongest teams in the world. At the forefront is USA which has won the World Cup four times, four times USA was champion in the Olympic Games and nine times champion in the CONCACAF regional championship. Then there are teams from Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany and England. All of them are traditional powerhouses of football in the men’s and women’s categories.

Nevertheless, if the debutant teams including Morocco make a good impression against the big teams, it will go a long way to promote women’s sport in their respective countries and will be a giant step forward for all women athletes in different nations of the world especially in Africa and Asia.