{"id":13058,"date":"2024-01-31T22:41:14","date_gmt":"2024-01-31T22:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/afcon-2023-south-africa-set-their-sights-on-the-final-after-morocco-upset\/"},"modified":"2024-01-31T22:41:15","modified_gmt":"2024-01-31T22:41:15","slug":"afcon-2023-south-africa-set-their-sights-on-the-final-after-morocco-upset","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/afcon-2023-south-africa-set-their-sights-on-the-final-after-morocco-upset\/","title":{"rendered":"Afcon 2023: South Africa set their sights on the final after Morocco upset"},"content":{"rendered":"


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It was no great surprise when Makgopa slotted home the opener just after the break, following a first half in which Morocco failed to register a shot on target in a tense battle in San Pedro.<\/p>\n

The Atlas Lions missed a chance to draw level from the penalty spot in the 85th minute, when Achraf Hakimi hit the bar.<\/p>\n

The North Africans then had Sofyan Amrabat sent off in the dying stages of the match for a professional foul, which handed Mokoena the chance to score one of the goals of the tournament so far from the resulting free-kick just outside the area.<\/p>\n

Added to that, Morocco coach Walid Regragui had declared the need to win Afcon<\/a> for only the second time in the nation’s history to confirm they were the best team on the continent following their semi-final appearance in Qatar.<\/p>\n

“It is not the end of the world. We are not the only ones,” said Regragui, whose country will host the next Nations Cup finals.<\/p>\n

“Lots of the favourites have been eliminated. We will come back stronger.”<\/p>\n

The three most successful teams in the history of the competition, Egypt, Cameroon and Ghana, with 16 titles between them, had all departed before South Africa’s surprise victory.<\/p>\n

Along with the exit of Senegal on penalties on Monday, all five of Africa’s 2022 World Cup qualifiers have been knocked out of the tournament.<\/p>\n

It has been the year of the underdog at this Afcon and the growth of the game on the continent is there to see through the nations that are achieving success – along with the number of African-based players balancing out the usual swath of European-based stars.<\/p>\n

“Local players can be good also when they are ready to play a level higher,” said Broos, whose squad is overwhelmingly made up of players from South Africa’s domestic league.<\/p>\n

“This is what’s happened with South Africa.<\/p>\n

“We are not playing anymore like South Africans. The style is different now. We play a little bit more, or try to play a little bit more, like Europeans. And that helps us a lot.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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It was no great surprise when Makgopa slotted home the opener just after the break, following a first half in which Morocco failed to register a shot on target in a tense battle in San Pedro. The Atlas Lions missed a chance to draw level from the penalty spot in the 85th minute, when Achraf […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13059,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13058"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13058"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13060,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13058\/revisions\/13060"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}