A semifinalist four years ago<\/a>, Morocco had 12 shots in the first 30 minutes and went ahead on Ismael Saibari’s 21st-minute goal, a chip over goalkeeper Alisson Becker.<\/p>\n\u201cThe team was a bit anxious at the beginning. Nerves were all over the place,\u201d Brazil coach Carlo Ancelotti said through a translator. \u201cA very imbalanced team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brazil evened the score 11 minutes later. Vin\u00edcius exchanged passes with Bruno Guimar\u00e3es on the left flank, took a few touches to cut around Neil El Aynaoui and rifled a right-footed shot past the outstretched arm of Yassine Bounou for his 10th international goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are satisfied with the draw,\u201d Morocco coach Mohamed Ouahbi said. “We are not euphoric.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fans in Brazil’s canary yellow dominated the crowd of 80,663 at MetLife Stadium \u2014 only about five sections near the south goal had fans in Morocco’s red.<\/p>\n
Sele\u00e7\u00e3o supporters expected the flowing, entertaining play of Pel\u00e9\u2019s era and were subdued before Vin\u00edcius evened the score with his spectacular angled effort.<\/p>\n
Brazil extended its unbeaten streak in World Cup openers to 21, including 17 wins, since a 1934 loss to Spain. No. 6 Brazil and seventh-ranked Morocco are the only top 10 teams to meet in the first round of the expanded 48-nation World Cup tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot lose heart,\u201d Ancelotti said. \u201cYou don\u2019t win a World Cup based on your first match.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brazil plays Haiti on Friday in Philadelphia, then closes Group C against Scotland in Miami Gardens, Florida. Morocco faces Scotland in Foxborough, Massachusetts, on Friday, then meets Haiti in Atlanta.<\/p>\n
Brazil star Neymar, recovering from a torn right calf, didn\u2019t dress for the game.<\/p>\n
One hour before the match, an Uber from Times Square to the stadium, site of next month’s final, was $126.95 \u2014 up from $83.95 for advance booking for the same time Sunday.<\/p>\n
Ancelotti, the Italian who became Brazil’s first foreign World Cup coach, wore a three-piece suit with a necktie on a sunny afternoon with a 88-degree Fahrenheit (31-degree Celsius) temperature for the 6 p.m. start.<\/p>\n
Morocco went ahead after Lucas Paquet\u00e1 lost control of a short pass from Roger Iba\u00f1ez and knocked it off Bilal El Khannouss. It bounced to Noussair Mazraoui, who sent the ball to Brahim D\u00edaz in the center circle.<\/p>\n
His through pass split Gabriel Magalh\u00e3es and Marquinho, and Saibari ran onto the ball at the top of the arc. Alisson was slow to come off his line as Saibari scored his 10th international goal.<\/p>\n
Morocco nearly went back ahead in the ninth of 10 minutes of stoppage time. Alisson spilled Aynaoui’s long-range shot, which was headed wide, then while on the grass leaned back toward the goal and used his right hand to block Ayoube Amaimouni’s follow-up effort.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still have to improve,\u201d Morocco captain Achraf Hakimi said. \u201cWe have to keep the positive things. We\u2019re going to learn from the mistakes, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP World Cup: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/fifa-world-cup<\/a><\/p>\nCopyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. \u2013 Samba soccer this wasn’t. Facing pressure to win its first World Cup title since…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":702712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[202240,56497,7824,4,450,242976,87204,53620,451,303801,36609,3,261262,73088,303802,99,452,453],"class_list":["post-702711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-alisson-becker","tag-bilal-el-khannouss","tag-bono","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-bruno-guimaraes","tag-carlo-ancelotti","tag-gabriel-magalhaes","tag-headlines","tag-ismael-saibari","tag-lucas-paqueta","tag-news","tag-neymar","tag-noussair-mazraoui","tag-roger-ibanez","tag-sports","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=702711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/702712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}