World Cup 2022: Vahid Halilhodzic discusses his Morocco exit and the Croatia match

Vahid Halilhodzic took Morocco to their sixth World Cup. But he was sacked as national team coach two months before the tournament by the Royal Moroccan Football Federation. He was replaced by Walid Regragui. A bitter pill for the French-Bosnian coach. "Everything that happened to me is a bit hard to accept, you know, it's hard for me to accept it as a human being. That's why I don't want to say anything more about it. It's hard for anyone to understand, such a reality is really hard to understand and accept, but I have to do it, I have no choice", the coach lamented to Croatian outlet Net.hr, as reported by Moroccan website 360.

On the bench of the Atlas Lions, Vahid Halilhodzic recorded 20 wins, 7 draws and 3 defeats in 30 matches. He helped Morocco climb to 22nd in the FIFA rankings. For the World Cup, he had already started to think about the tactical plan against Croatia. He says: "Of course, I'm sorry not to be leading Morocco against Croatia, I lived that match, I had already started preparing. I had ideas for this game, I was optimistic, even though Croatia are big favourites. But at the World Cup, over one match, anything is possible. You just have to believe and prepare. You have to earn the victory, nobody will hand you anything. You have to be brave, talented and make sacrifices at the same time." Morocco and Croatia will go head to head on Wednesday 23 November in Group F.

The 70-year-old coach concludes: "For Morocco to succeed in this match, the key will be discipline in the team's work, behaviour... Because every World Cup match will be a big tactical battle in which the things I mentioned will prevail. "

Vahid Halilhodzic has taken four African national teams to the World Cup. They are Ivory Coast (2010), Algeria (2014), Japan (2018) and Morocco (2022). And yet, he will only have coached the Fennecs at the World Cup.