The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the men's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The championship has been awarded every four years since the first tournament in 1930, except in 1942 and 1946, due to World War II.
The tournament consists of two parts, the qualification phase and the final phase (officially called the World Cup Finals). The qualification phase, which currently takes place over the three years preceding the Finals, is used to determine which teams qualify for the Finals. The current format of the Finals involves 32 teams competing for the title, at venues within the host nation (or nations) over a period of about a month. The World Cup Finals is the most widely viewed sporting event in the world, with an estimated 715.1 million people watching the 2006 tournament final.
Morocco have qualified for the final stages of the FIFA World Cup on six occasions, which were in 1970, 1986, 1994, 1998, 2018 and 2022.[1] Their best performance was in 2022 when they finished in fourth place, thus becoming both the first African and Arab nation to reach a semi-final at a World Cup.[2]
Morocco is set to become the second African nation, the second MENA nation, the first North African and first Arab nation to host the World Cup when it was granted host status for the 2030 edition alongside the two European countries Portugal and Spain.
- ^ "World Cup Record". Planet World Cup. Retrieved 19 February 2014.
- ^ Smyth, Rob (17 December 2022). "Croatia 2-1 Morocco: World Cup 2022 third-place playoff – as it happened". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 December 2022.