Morocco’s Ismael Saibari appears to be like dejected after sustaining an harm on July 4, 2026. — Reuters
Morocco star Ismael Saibari will miss his workforce’s World Cup quarter-final showdown with France, coach Mohamed Ouahbi confirmed on Wednesday.
“Everyone is 100% fit except Saibari. This game comes too soon for him but I hope he is not out for the rest of the competition,” Ouahbi instructed reporters forward of Thursday’s last-eight showdown on the Gillette Stadium close to Boston.
Saibari, who has simply joined Bayern Munich from Dutch champions PSV Eindhoven on a five-year deal for a reported charge of fifty million euros ($57 million), has been one of many standout gamers on the World Cup.
He scored in every of his workforce’s three group video games and transformed the profitable penalty within the shoot-out as Morocco beat the Netherlands within the final 32.
Nevertheless, the attacking midfielder got here off early on with a hamstring drawback within the 3-0 win in opposition to Canada within the final 16 final Saturday, and has not recovered.
Soufiane Rahimi, who’s an out-and-out striker, got here on for Saibari in that sport and scored Morocco’s third aim.
The Atlas Lions are searching for to avenge their 2-0 defeat in opposition to France within the semi-finals of the 2022 World Cup.
That was the primary time any African or Arab workforce had made it to the final 4 of the event, and the motivation for them this time is to match that run.
Ouahbi dismissed ideas that his workforce can say they’ve already had a profitable event by attending to the quarter-finals.
“We absolutely want to win the game tomorrow, so we will not listen to people who say it doesn’t matter if we go out now,” stated the coach, who took over from predecessor Walid Regragui in March.
“Tomorrow we will try get to the semi-finals. I don’t like this sentiment that we have already done well and anything else is a bonus,” added Ouabi, who stated he watched the 2022 assembly of the perimeters as a fan, on tv.
In the meantime, Morocco’s Actual Madrid star Brahim Diaz insisted his facet can compete with the much-fancied French as he prepares to come back up in opposition to Kylian Mbappe, his colleague at membership degree.
“Tomorrow we are playing one of the favourites but we have shown we can compete and that is why we are here. I have full faith and full confidence in the team.”
