{"id":14541,"date":"2023-07-30T10:32:43","date_gmt":"2023-07-30T10:32:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/?p=14541"},"modified":"2023-07-30T10:32:43","modified_gmt":"2023-07-30T10:32:43","slug":"morocco-upset-south-korea-in-first-womens-world-cup-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/?p=14541","title":{"rendered":"Morocco Upset South Korea In First Women\u2019s World Cup Win"},"content":{"rendered":"

Agency Report <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Morocco won a Women\u2019s World Cup match for the first time after Ibtissam Jraidi struck early to give them a stunning 1-0 victory over South Korea on Sunday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Having been thrashed 6-0 by Germany on their World Cup debut, this hard-earned win kept alive Morocco\u2019s unlikely chances of reaching the last 16 in Australia and New Zealand.<\/span><\/p>\n

As well as the first Morocco victory ever at the tournament, there was another piece of history when defender Nouhaila Benzina became the first player to wear a hijab at the Women\u2019s World Cup.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are just so glad that our efforts paid off,\u201d said the goal-scorer Jraidi.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to dedicate this victory to Morocco and all the Arab nations at large. It was the fruit of our hard work.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

French coach Reynald Pedros saw his Morocco team take the lead after only six minutes in front of just over 13,000 fans in Adelaide.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hanane Ait El Haj crossed and forward Jraidi nipped in ahead of her marker to expertly glance her header into the far corner.<\/span><\/p>\n

Morocco, one of the lowest-ranked teams at the tournament at 72 in the world, were supposed underdogs against the 17th-ranked Koreans.<\/span><\/p>\n

But they made by far the better start against shell-shocked opponents.<\/span><\/p>\n

Colin Bell\u2019s Korean side belatedly grew into the game towards the end of the first half, but like in their 2-0 opening defeat to Colombia, they lacked punch up front.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many of the crowd were shouting for the Koreans and their team piled on the pressure in the second half as they attempted to keep their World Cup hopes alive.<\/span><\/p>\n

Morocco were grimly hanging on.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Koreans had three players on two as they raced towards Morocco\u2019s goal, only for Benzina to cynically clip an advancing Korean attacker and earn a yellow card.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bell threw on attacker Casey Phair, the United States-born 16-year-old who is the youngest player ever to feature at a Women\u2019s World Cup.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Morocco held on for a gritty win that left South Korea facing an early exit from Group H, having failed to get even one shot on target despite all their possession.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFirst of all, congratulations to Morocco on the win, the first in their World Cup history,\u201d the Englishman Bell said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to say it was deserved. They got off to a good start and that affected us in the first half.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSecond half we had almost all of the play, but the chances that we did create, we rushed them, we didn\u2019t take them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve experienced many ups and downs in football, and this is definitely one of the worst moments.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

AFP<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Morocco won a Women\u2019s World Cup match for the first time after Ibtissam Jraidi struck early to give them a stunning 1-0 victory over South Korea on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14542,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[796,7327,7186],"class_list":["post-14541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-morocco","tag-south-korea","tag-womens-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14541"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14541"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14544,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14541\/revisions\/14544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}