Morocco’s Atlas Lionesses have made historical past by qualifying for the final 16 of the FIFA Girls’s World Cup, after beating Colombia and knocking out Germany – on their first-ever look on the event – and the nation couldn’t be prouder.
The workforce’s star striker Rosella Ayane described Thursday’s achievement as “an unbelievable win” and a “unbelievable workforce effort”.
“Coming into the event, we knew qualifying from the group can be robust however we labored collectively and achieved one thing particular for all of Morocco,” Ayane advised Al Jazeera.
“It’s superb to maintain creating historical past. Our World Cup journey continues and we at the moment are centered on the subsequent spherical vs France,” she stated.
Moroccan followers have paid tribute to the athletes and their exceptional journey, as they’d already turn into the primary Arab nation to qualify for the Girls’s World Cup. The workforce additionally consists of Nouhaila Benzina, the primary Muslim girl carrying a hijab to play on the World Cup.
Hashtags like #DimaMaghrib and #The_impossible_is_not_Moroccan had been trending on social media websites as followers expressed their admiration for the workforce’s distinctive efficiency.
Writing on the social media website X, previously often known as Twitter, the Moroccan nationwide soccer workforce posted a easy message in Arabic: “The not possible shouldn’t be Moroccan.”
المستحيل ليس مغربيا 🇲🇦🤯
𝐑𝐨𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐋𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐬#DimaMaghrib #OneGameOneFamily #AtlasLionesses pic.twitter.com/TEpTEyESh3
— Équipe du Maroc (@EnMaroc) August 3, 2023
‘Carried out the not possible’
Followers had been fast to congratulate the workforce, with many acknowledging the unprecedented win.
“We, Moroccan, hold making historical past! Congratulations to our Atlas Lionesses for making it to the TOP16,” stated X person Mimouni Loubna.
“Lionesses don t know the not possible. Bravo, the women of #Morocco,” one other person wrote.
Benallal Sadik, one other Moroccan supporting the workforce, paid tribute to his nation.
“We have now stated and can proceed to say: Morocco … is an distinctive nation. Congratulations to us as Moroccans, Superb, Arabs, and Africans, on this excellent achievement,” Sadik wrote in Arabic.
“The Atlas Lionesses have executed the not possible – of their first ever WWC participation. Germany on their means house, whereas the Moroccan fairytale continues,” the Maghrib Foot wrote.
Others took to X to commend Benzina for being the primary hijabi to play within the event and for uplifting younger Muslim girls within the area.
Amongst them was Shaista Aziz, director of the Three Hijabis – campaigners working to make soccer “equitable”, in line with the group’s web site.
“The importance of that is HUGE for a lot of #Muslim women and girls together with myself,” Aziz wrote on X.
“Nouhaila Benzina turned first Muslim girl in hijab to play at World Cup. #France has banned Muslim girls in hijab from enjoying soccer,” she stated.
Subsequent up #Morocco play #France in #FIFAWWC The importance
of that is HUGE for a lot of #Muslim women and girls together with myself and @THijabis. Nouhaila Benzina turned first Muslim girl in hijab to play at World Cup. #France has banned Muslim girls in hijab from enjoying soccer. pic.twitter.com/CswNAiBRNq— Shaista Aziz 💙 (@shaistaAziz) August 3, 2023
Morocco will face France within the subsequent spherical of the event, held in Australia and New Zealand.
Final month, the French Soccer Federation (FFF) banned the Islamic headband, or hijab, throughout video games.
France has lengthy carried out legal guidelines that defenders say are designed to guard its type of secularism.
“I’ll submit Nouhaila Benzina pic in each french information web page,” one Moroccan person wrote. “Haters gonna hate.”
The success of the Atlas Lionesses comes after an identical run by their male counterparts eventually 12 months’s males’s World Cup.
The Atlas Lions superior to the Spherical of 16 for the primary time since 1986 and have become the primary African or Arab nation to achieve the semifinal. Regardless of a spirited efficiency they misplaced to France and didn’t make it to the ultimate spherical.
Some Moroccans are hoping that the nationwide workforce could also be luckier the second time round.
“The Atlas Lionesses with probability to avenge the lads’s semi-final defeat in Qatar,” Tom Yousef Drissi, a Moroccan person, wrote on X.
