World Cup<\/a> and do it a disservice. One of these teams, jostling among those hopefuls just below the five or six favourites, will earn the kind of win that gives lift-off in a tournament. The other will go home unseasonably early and face inevitable recriminations.<\/p>\nThe outcome looks impossible to call. Perhaps it will come down to who can handle the heat, projected to be at least 30 degrees C \/ 86 degrees F when the game begins at 7pm local time. This time the hydration breaks will prove worthy of the name.<\/p>\n
Ouahbi and Netherlands boss Ronald Koeman will search for other gains too. Morocco were welcomed enthusiastically in Mexico\u2019s north-east and their head coach was quick to compare the hosts\u2019 passion for football with the fervour that engulfs his own country.<\/p>\n
In fact, the hand of friendship between the nations reaches back four decades. Morocco drew with Poland and England in Monterrey during Mexico 1986, when they made history by reaching the knock-out stage. \u201cWe feel the love,\u201d said Ouahbi, who indulged the trip down memory lane up to a point. \u201cMore than coming back to where we played, we hope to go a little bit further than we did then.\u201d<\/p>\n
Monterrey Stadium is one of the most picturesque in the World Cup. Photograph: ANP\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n
There is a chance it will, quite literally, come down to muscle. Netherlands striker Brian Brobbey scored with each of his first three shots on target this summer and has reached the brink of stardom after transforming the Dutch attack. Previously regarded in some quarters as a blunt instrument unbefitting of an Ajax education, he has mixed the qualities of a focal point with sheer cutting edge.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a plan for everyone,\u201d said Ouahbi, offering some assurance from his time coaching Anderlecht\u2019s under-17s. \u201cI know [Brobbey] very well. We played in the Future Cup, in Amsterdam, against him and didn\u2019t concede any. He was probably the same size and gave the defence a run for their money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Only Germany and France matched the Netherlands\u2019 10-goal group stage haul. Cody Gakpo, outstanding in the demolition of Sweden, appears to have been freed by Brobbey\u2019s presence and there has been plenty to enjoy about Crysencio Summerville\u2019s trickery from the right. Both players have scored twice. Koeman noted that Morocco, relentlessly front-footed under Ouahbi, will leave spaces but admitted the Netherlands must work to prevent similar exposure.<\/p>\n
The tragic news that Gakpo and his partner recently lost their unborn son has clouded the buildup. Gakpo will remain at the tournament; decisions of this nature are always deeply personal and Koeman paid tribute to his resilience. \u201cOf course in the first few days he had the freedom to go out and be with the family,\u201d he said. \u201cThere was never a moment when he said \u2018I want to go back [home]\u2019. That\u2019s the way he approached it. He\u2019s ready to play and I don\u2019t think it will be a heavy weight on his performance. He deals with things in his own way. It\u2019s very powerful, beautiful, and we\u2019ve left it there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another sighting of Gakpo in full, gliding motion would illuminate this impossibly scenic venue. So would more heroics from Ismael Saibari, the Morocco forward who has three goals of his own and looks bound to join Bayern Munich from PSV Eindhoven. Saibari was on target in the draw with Brazil, when Morocco were at their dizzying best for long spells. The 18-year-old midfielder Ayyoub Bouaddi has also turned heads and if both teams master the conditions a classic cannot be discounted.<\/p>\n
The hope is that extraneous factors do not prove relevant. Ouahbi played down any idea his three Dutch-born players, Noussair Mazraoui, Sofyan Amrabat and Anass Salah-Eddine, would be overcome by the occasion\u2019s emotion. The nations have a well-documented bond; he acknowledged the \u201codd feeling of coming up against another country that gave something to you\u201d, with Ouahbi having grown up in Brussels.<\/p>\n
They have that local backing, too. There have been attempts in Monterrey to rekindle memories engrained exactly 12 years ago<\/a> at World Cup 2014 when, in Fortaleza, a hotly disputed late penalty by Klaas-Jan Huntelaar took the Netherlands past Mexico and into the quarter-finals. Virgil van Dijk was asked by a local journalist if he expected to feel the natives\u2019 wrath, but he preferred to think of the pre-match walk that, as ever, the Oranje have planned. Their familiar supporters\u2019 bus has had to travel 1,118 miles from Kansas City, where they defeated Tunisia on Friday.<\/p>\nFor one of these expansive, compelling teams it will be the end of the road.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is going to be a clash of titans,\u201d said Morocco goalkeeper Yassine Bounou. Maybe the topography of Nuevo Leon, the surrounding region, is in for a reshaping after all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Morocco manager Mohamed Ouahbi had just been asked what would inspire his players to justify the feverish expectation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-516158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}