Moroccans claim soccer as they weather economic setbacks

Avenue Mohamed V, Rabat's central artery, experienced an explosion of bustle on Tuesday night after Morocco's last-minute victory over Spain, which led its soccer team to the quarterfinals in a World Cup for the first time in its history. .

Dressed in the red national shirt, King Mohamed VI joined the party from inside a vehicle, among the thousands who blew their horns in the massive popular celebration, according to images released by the

Le Desk

digital portal .

The Alaouite monarch praised the players for having "lived up to the expectations and aspirations of the people" and asked them to "stay the course".

Families with children, young women with flags, veteran fans and scores of teenage boys joyously seized, amid a discreet police presence, the Grand Rabbati thoroughfare where Parliament is located.

They numbered in the tens of thousands.

Just two days before, the largest protest march recorded in recent times in Morocco had passed along that same road, with up to 3,000 demonstrators crying out against "the rise in prices (7.1% annual inflation) and oppression", in the face of a large deployment of security forces.

The march called by the Moroccan Social Front, which includes various parties of the left, unions and associations of civil servants and organizations in defense of human rights, denounced the deterioration of social and public services, as well as "political arrests", among them those of journalists, intellectuals and dissidents, according to Efe.

The demonstration ended without incident.

The football victories of the Atlas Lions are presented as a positive note, as "clear" in the darkness of the storm, according to the financial analyst Fátima Uriaghli, in the economic portal

Football has managed to make us forget the disappointments at an economic level.

The classification of the national team seems like an enchanted parenthesis in this gloomy context”, considers this expert.

“The magic of football has forged a communion, in an indescribable joy, of millions of Moroccans.

Politicians and civil society, workers and businessmen, citizens... all have left their divergences and differences to proudly display unity in a collective jubilation.

In addition, it has started to rain ”, concluded the argument the analyst Uriaghli.

By order of King Mohamed VI, commander of believers, last week the Ministry of Islamic Affairs had organized prayers in mosques and places of worship in the kingdom "to implore the Almighty" for the arrival of "beneficent rains as a sign of mercy". .

Autumn showers have returned regularly in the past week to Morocco, which is suffering the most intense drought in three decades, the monarch himself warned in a speech last month.

The reserves in the swamps are slightly above 30%.

The North African country fears, with the drop in rainfall of 10% and the increase in temperatures of more than one degree forecast within two decades, a loss of 25% of the availability of water for irrigation in a primary sector that concentrates 14 % of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

"Success has called for success," celebrated the good results in Qatar in an editorial in

"The team has shown that it can play with the greatest without complexes, whoever the adversary is," boasted the main daily in the world of business and finance.

“The world has discovered (through soccer) a country united after its selection.

There is no better publicity possible (...) to promote investment and tourism.

And not only abroad, but also on the domestic front for those who are inclined towards skepticism”, he detailed the reasons for taking advantage of the pull that the good work of the Atlas Lions represents for the image of Morocco.

"Now a great window of opportunity opens before us," concluded

Demonstration against the high cost of living, on Sunday in Rabat.- (AFP)

A game played at home to the applause of the diaspora

As if that were not enough, the red and green team played against Spain at home in Qatar, where about 10,000 Moroccan migrants live, backed by some 40,000 fans from Morocco and its diaspora countries.

And, above all, playing as the only Arab country competing in the second round.

The celebrations of Morocco's successes on the pitch have also served to strengthen ties between the more than 37 million inhabitants settled in its territory and the at least five million members of the diaspora: some 1.2 million in France. , about 800,000 in Spain, and between 400,000 and 300,000 in Italy and Belgium, respectively.

Many of them have acquired the nationality of their countries of residence.

The team that got the Reds off the World Cup in Qatar sums up this new identity well, of which many Moroccans are proud.

Among the 26 players called up in Qatar, 14 have been born or lived in European countries.

Bono, Sevilla goalkeeper, was the hero in the penalty shootout.

Achraf Hakimi, from PSG, who scored the definitive goal for the Atlas Lions, was born in the Spanish capital, where he trained as a footballer.

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