Far beyond sports: the Moroccan national team is like a finger in the eye of the Western world - voila! news

Moroccan fans celebrate in Rabat the qualification for the quarter-finals of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar (Twitter)

In 1977, the legendary Pele declared that an African team "will win the World Cup before the year 2000".

In the end it didn't happen, and in fact no African team did until the year 2000 - so Pele had to extend the expiration date of his prediction to 2010. An assertion that later turned out to be wrong as well.

The year is 2022, and the Moroccan national team is one game away from the World Cup final - closer than ever to fulfilling the prediction of the 82-year-old Pele.

It is worth remembering and reminding that this is a team that is not only African but also Arab - and that its campaign in Qatar this year succeeded in making history and hysteria.

History, because it will forever be remembered as the first Arab team ever to make it to the World Cup and reach the semi-finals with its iron defense, while along the way it keeps making the best strikers in the world miserable (did someone say Belgium, Spain and Portugal?).

Hysteria, because if we look for a moment at what is happening in the countries of the Arab world, it seems that a football team has managed to do what no leadership has yet done, and that is to create complete unity, with the Moroccan flag appearing on every Arab street corner and on every Arab account on social media.

Will Pele's prediction come true belatedly? (Photo: official website, Dror Zamir)

Even the date of the beginning of the month of Ramadan is not always agreed upon in the Arab-Muslim world.

And that is precisely the greatness of the Moroccan national team and its players.

The unity they created, and not least the pride they caused, for every person in the Arab world in general and the Muslim world in particular.

In fact, there is more than a sense of unity here.

It is about a kind of unity and pride - against the West.

While quite a few of its people try to label the Arab-Muslim world as someone who has only brought bad things to the world, the very progress of the team embodies a clear statement against the West that contains the message: "Guys, there is no third world here, and it certainly does not begin and end at will." Q. Instead, we look at you at eye level, and dismiss you from the top European teams and players. We are not satisfied with our history, which gave birth to figures such as Ibn Khaldun and Ibn Sina - but we want to live in the present. To create a new history, contemporary flourishing, and bring achievements to the world tangible even today.

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Create unity and pride against the West.

The national team player and his mother (Photo: GettyImages, Ian MacNicol)

A number of leading football clubs in Europe are today under Arab ownership, the World Cup was held for the first time in the Middle East and in an Arab country, successful foreign films are shot in Arab countries and just at the beginning of the week the United Arab Emirates launched the "Rashad" spacecraft which is planned to land on the moon within a few months.

A spacecraft that arrived two years after the Arab history in space with the launch of the "Hope" spacecraft to Mars, which can only indicate the fact that something is happening in the Arab world - and the wave of awakening is in the midst of it.

No one is trying to claim that everything that is happening in the Arab world is an exemplary example.

There are quite a few negative sides that cannot be denied - as in any western society.

But, at the same time, there is no doubt that it is a bit ridiculous to see that the people of the world who brought to humanity the world wars that claimed the lives of tens of millions, the only operational use of nuclear weapons to date and the longest occupation in world history - are handing out certificates of morality to others.

As FIFA president Gianni Infantino said last month? "For what the Europeans have done in the last three thousand years, we have to apologize for the next three thousand years - before we can give moral lessons to others.

A World Cup that will be talked about for years to come (Photo: Maor Alxalsi)

The option that there is a hidden struggle here in the West, which constantly claims to be the "enlightened" side of the equation, should not be dismissed.

A struggle that is reflected in unprecedented unity and support for the "Atlas Lions" team of Morocco.

True, no one expected or believed at the beginning of the World Cup that the Moroccan team would reach the final four.

But from the beginning of the competition it was possible to feel that this is an Arab World Cup that gives a sense of pride to the people of the Arab world, and the achievement of the Moroccan players is just the icing on the cake.

The fight on the soccer field contains another fight - one that comes to say to the Western world "You are not the only one who knows how to do World Cups".

And not only do we know, we also leave you dust.

This is a World Cup that everyone will be talking about for years to come, and maybe it was just the beginning for more world tournaments that will be held in Arab countries.

This is actually the slot that the Atlas Lions team entered - and there are even those who would say that it is out of necessity, because there is no lack of those who would argue that it is first and foremost a team that represents the continent of Africa before the Arab world.

But it is impossible to ignore her tremendous achievement, which beyond a sporting achievement is an achievement of tremendous pride and unprecedented unity, as can be seen in the videos that have circulated on the Internet - from every corner of the Arab world.

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