Regragui: Morocco have shown they can compete with the elite of international football

Morocco showed they could compete with elite teams in international football after finishing fourth in the World Cup, according to head coach Walid Regragui.

Goals from Josko Gvardiol and Mislav Orsic gave Croatia a 2-1 victory in the third-place play-off on Saturday as Morocco's historic World Cup came to an end.

They became the first African nation to reach the semi-finals of football's biggest international tournament, beating giants like Spain and Portugal before finally succumbing to France in the last four.

Despite the losing end to the Moroccan campaign, Regragui believes the Atlas Lions have asserted their right to be considered one of the best footballing nations in the world.

"Tomorrow morning we will take stock and realize that we have all done a fantastic achievement here," Regragui told reporters in his post-match press conference.

"We played Croatia twice, one of the top three teams in the world. We played against Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium and Canada, it's wonderful.

"We aim to win the World Cup one day. Morocco showed that we can face these teams. We are now one of the top four teams in the world.

When asked if he would change anything at the Morocco tournament, Regragui replied: "Honestly, I wouldn't say anything.

"We had a 0.01% chance of winning the tournament initially. We managed to qualify for the last four.

"We faced some of the powerhouses in football. If you had told me we would go this far, world number four, I would have accepted that straight away.

"We deserve respect. They fought until the end, worked hard. This is football, some nations are stronger than us. France was, Croatia was tonight , but only slightly stronger.

"For 2026, if I am still in charge, I will have more experience and maybe things will change, and in 2026 we will achieve the feat that we did in 2022."

Morocco's last match in Qatar saw a number of controversial refereeing decisions, with the final whistle greeted by intense protests from Regragui's players towards the referee.

Achraf Hakimi, Morocco's star right-back, was reportedly involved straight away with FIFA President Gianni Infantino in the tunnel after the match.

This comes after the Royal Moroccan Football Federation lodged a complaint with FIFA regarding the performance of referee Cesar Ramos in their semi-final loss to France.

However, Regragui was careful not to focus too much on the referee's demonstration, while defending his players' behavior after the game.

“When you lose, you are always disappointed, upset,” Regragui said. "My players are great competitors, I don't think there was any disrespect.

"Sometimes we overreact at the end of games, it happens. We were just not at the level we set ourselves.

“We focus on what we were missing. We cannot hide behind arbitration, it is not the Moroccan way. We let the association take care of any official problem.”