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Morocco line-up during the 2022 FIFA World Cup quarterfinal match against Portugal in Doha, Qatar.
What’s it worth to crush it at the World Cup?
Whether or not underdog Morocco beats France in the World Cup semifinals on Wednesday, one thing is sure: Becoming the first African or Arab nation to get this far in the biggest sporting event on the planet stands to get Morocco more than on-field glory in Qatar.
The Atlas Lions probably didn't expect to have such an amazing run, but their overperformance is no coincidence. It’s the fruit of decades of heavy investment by the kingdom in developing its players as part of Morocco’s broader sports diplomacy.
Hold up. What is sports diplomacy? It’s “when the acts of diplomacy — communication, representation, and negotiation — intersect with the sports world, whether it's in the arena or outside of it," says Lindsay Sarah Krasnoff, who knows a thing or two about sports diplomacy because she teaches it at NYU.
It can be formal, when carried out by governments or by an athlete representing a country, or informal — like the privately-run NBA’s push to make basketball a global game. But the objective is always the same: to get your country or sport noticed so you can "sell" it to the world.
Although success in sports ≠ success in politics, it does boost a national brand. A good example is Croatia, a country of less than 4 million that's only been independent for 30 years. Four years ago, it’s often said that France won the World Cup but Croatia won the hearts of fans around the world by making it all the way to the final of the tournament in Russia.
Its fairytale run put Croatia on everyone’s radar. According to one study, during the 2018 tournament visits to the tourism website soared by 250% — a big deal for a nation that makes 20% of its GDP from foreign visitors.
Symbolism matters, too. Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, Croatia's president at the time, went all in on showing her support for the national team in Russia. She won global praise for traveling in economy class with fans, gifting world leaders with customized jerseys, and braving a downpour to comfort the players after losing to France in Moscow. The president made her country look cool — exactly what you want to promote foreign investment and tourism.
(Unfortunately for Grabar-Kitarović, she became more famous abroad than popular with Croatian voters, narrowly losing re-election in 2020.)
Morocco is the Croatia of 2022. "It's fair to say there will be a marginal soft power benefit for Morocco. Their winning streak has generated a lot of excitement," says Eurasia Group analyst Sofia Meranto. "The Arab world and African spectators are united in backing them, and leaders across the region were quick to express their joy at the team making the semifinals. Many other fans now also see the Atlas Lions as the favored underdog."
The government is eager to cash in on the team's success to get the most bang for its sports diplomacy buck. A clear sign is the slick video from the Moroccan tourism board dominating halftime TV ads during the tournament across Europe.
This is a unique opportunity for Morocco to showcase itself to tourists. Before COVID, the country welcomed almost 20 million of them, with tourism accounting for more than 10% of GDP and 17% of the Moroccan workforce. The sector has recovered, but only at 80% of pre-pandemic levels — so Morocco would certainly appreciate a World Cup bump to get its tourism groove back ... and maybe even further develop its cash cow.
"It's great to make an imprint, but you want to do more than just enter the history books," Krasnoff explains. "You want to sustain that in order to get the maximum mileage out of your investment."
But investing in sports diplomacy can also backfire. Over a decade ago, Qatar not only spent big to secure the right to host the World Cup but also launched BeIN, a global sports channel under the Al-Jazeera network, and purchased French soccer club PSG.
Since then, the Qataris have gotten blowback over the alleged bribes involved in their bid as well as their dodgy human rights record. BeIN has lost the rights to air many top competitions, and traditional European fans have soured on PSG for being nouveau riche. Money might lure mega-stars like Leo Messi to Paris, but it won’t buy the respect of romantics who just love the Beautiful Game.
So, who'll win the sports diplomacy World Cup in 2022? The stakes are very different for the host country and Morocco.
Off the pitch, uber-rich and regional soft power heavyweight Qatar can claim credit for organizing the World Cup that featured the best-ever run for an Arab team. It’s too soon to say whether the tournament put a dent in the country’s global standing or rather delivered precisely what the Qataris hoped for: lots of attention and future partnerships.
But on the pitch, less affluent and influential Morocco has captured the imagination of Arab and non-Arab fans alike — with none of Qatar’s political baggage.
Badr Benoun celebrates after Morocco progress to the World Cup semi-finals in Qatar.
Morocco’s historic World Cup run transcends its borders
Eurasia Group's Strahinja Matejic is attending the Atlantic Dialogues conference in Marrakech, Morocco. But he decided to go a day early to join local fans who watched the Atlas Lions make World Cup history.
“Are we winning tonight?”
That was the first question a Moroccan immigration officer asked me at the Casablanca airport just hours before Morocco faced mighty Portugal in the quarter-finals of the men's soccer World Cup in Qatar.
Casablanca, the country’s bustling largest city, had ground to a halt by the time the teams were warming up. Bus drivers, roller skate hawkers in the Arab League Park, street vendors … all quickly found a chair or at least a wall to lean on. Everyone was at a watch party.
In a packed café near the King Hassan II Mosque, I gestured like a coach asking the ref for a free kick to procure a small plastic ottoman to sit on. When they realized I was a guest in Morocco — and supported their jeering of Cristiano Ronaldo, Portugal’s past-his-prime GOAT — a group of students invited me to join them and promoted me to a full chair.
Leading the chants at the table is one of my new friends: Aarifa, from Sudan. She's in Morocco on an international scholarship — one of many ways the government is investing in its soft power.
That's also the primary reason I'm there, as I explained to the immigration officer after agreeing that yes, of course, Morocco will advance. I'm attending the Atlantic Dialogues conference in Marrakech, one of several policymaking events Morocco is hosting in the next few weeks for organizations like the African Union in Tangiers or the Alliance of Civilizations in Fez.
After Youssef En-Nesyri scored what would be the winning goal, I became part of the euphoric celebration. I hugged Naim, another member of the table, who took off his taqiyah (Muslim skullcap) embroidered with the Moroccan flag and put it on my head. As we awaited the final whistle in a thick cloud of cigarette smoke, the Atlas Lions supporters in Casablanca were roaring as loud as those lucky enough to be cheering inside the Al Thumama Stadium in Qatar.
When it was all over, everyone stormed the streets. Bikes, cars, even food trucks full of fans in a frenzy waved flags of Morocco, the Arab League, and Palestine to mark the first time an African and an Arab team had reached the semi-finals at the World Cup.
An elderly woman in a wheelchair “told” me the the moment felt to her like 1956, when Morocco became fully independent from France. Meanwhile, I saw two military service members celebrating on the roof of the Royal Naval School.
It’s almost an axiom that success in sports boosts national unity and pride. But in Morocco, that transcends national borders — both real and imagined.
This victory converges with the goal of the conferences in Fez, Marrakech, and Tangiers: to show that Morocco — whose national soccer jerseys don’t have stars above the association crest like Brazil’s or Spain’s — may not have won a World Cup (yet) but it plays an active role in the global map.
Indeed, Morocco’s historic run truly echoes FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s famous but insufficient attempt to push back against critics of Qatar hosting the tournament. Morocco now plays for all Africans, for all Arabs, for all Muslims, for all underdogs — and for all of us who romantically believe in the Beautiful Game and cherish the virtues of the sport.
When I woke up at dawn, the city was silent. The Atlas Lions were resting before the Wednesday game with the Gallic roosters. If you ask me then if “we” are winning tonight , I’ll reply the same — inshallah.
Frenemy face-off at the World Cup: Morocco vs. Spain
It's just a soccer game. Or maybe there’s more to it.
On Tuesday, underdog Morocco takes on 2010 champion Spain at the Qatar World Cup in what one might frame as a battle between “neighbors” in Africa and Europe, separated by barely 9 miles of the Mediterranean Sea and with a long-fraught political relationship that’s seen some recent twists and turns.
And there’s a bigger geopolitical story that goes beyond the two kingdoms.
Territorial disputes have always made Morocco-Spain ties, to put it mildly, complicated. Morocco resents Spain for not handing over the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara, which Rabat claims as part of its territory and is rich in fish and minerals.
Morocco also has a beef with Spain over Ceuta and Melilla, two centuries-old Spanish enclaves inside Morocco and the last vestiges of European sovereignty in mainland Africa. (Fun fact: 20 years ago, the two sides almost went to war over a rock in the Strait of Gibraltar inhabited by … goats.)
The bilateral tensions have two major spillover effects with EU-wide implications.
First, Morocco has been accused of weaponizing sub-Saharan African migrants when it tells its border guards to stand by and "let" asylum-seekers try to scale the border fences of Ceuta and Melilla, which is EU sovereign territory. Rabat does this whenever Spain triggers it over Western Sahara: In May 2021, Madrid had to deploy the army to help defend the border from an influx of thousands of migrants after the Spanish government allowed a leader of the Polisario Front — a militant group that seeks independence for Western Sahara — to get medical treatment in Spain.
This is not just a Morocco-Spain problem. Once the asylum-seekers are on EU soil, they are free to travel to other EU countries — potentially unleashing a migration crisis across the entire bloc.
Second, whatever happens between Morocco and Spain is closely watched next door in natural-gas rich Algeria, which backs the Polisario Front and has kept the border with its western neighbor closed since 1994 to protest Morocco’s partial “occupation” of Western Sahara.
In late April, the Algerians first threatened to cut off gas supplies to the Spanish after Madrid announced it would resell some of that gas to Morocco. And when PM Pedro Sánchez went a step further by ending Spain's long-held neutrality on Western Sahara to ward off another migrant crisis, Algeria responded by selling more gas to Italy. Algerian gas deliveries to Spain are now down by half from a year ago and the US has become Madrid’s top seller.
Algeria's strong pushback to Spain's pro-Rabat gestures is a heads-up to the EU: Kicking the Russian gas habit is not risk-free. The more leverage an alternative supplier gets, the more inclined it'll be to turn on a dime and move to kill a contract if political feathers get ruffled.
So, what’s the current state of bilateral ties and what does the future hold? “Spain and Morocco are now on a honeymoon, but this is only a parenthesis before the next crisis, which Morocco will decide when to launch,” says Ignacio Cembrero, a veteran Spanish journalist and expert on Morocco-Spain relations.
The next big development will come, he adds, when the Spanish government follows the US in recognizing Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, as the Trump administration did in December 2020 in exchange for Rabat joining the US-brokered Abraham Accords. “That’s what Morocco wants.”
Back to the soccer ... on the pitch, Spain is the favorite.La Roja has a young squad led by FC Barcelona playmaker Pedri that excels at its signature tiki-taka passing game. Still, the Atlas Lions have plenty of talent too and will surely give their northern neighbors a run for their money.
Yet off the field, the stakes are higher for Morocco. If it wins and becomes the first Arab country to reach the World Cup quarter-finals, Moroccans will go crazy at home — and in Spain, where some 800,000 of them live.
Let’s just hope the celebrations don’t turn into the violent riots that erupted across Belgian and Dutch cities when Morroco upset Belgium in the first round.This comes to you from the Signal newsletter team of GZERO Media. Sign up today.
Argentina fan celebrates after the World Cup match against Mexico.
World Cup heats up Argentina’s presidential race
When Argentina faces Poland in their do-or-die last group stage match on Wednesday, one thing will be missing at the stadium in Qatar: Argentine politicians.
In the soccer-crazy South American nation, políticos rarely watch the Albiceleste, in person to avoid getting blamed for a loss. Former President Mauricio Macri didn’t get the memo, as he attended — in his new FIFA gig — Argentina’s shocking loss to Saudi Arabia last week. Almost on cue, fans responded by launching an online petition for Macri and his bad juju to stay as far away as possible from GOAT Leo Messi and his crew.
But the brouhaha over Macri is part of a bigger story: The former president has hinted he might want to get his old job back in next year’s election.
Less than a year out from the vote, these are turbulent times in Argentina. Ordinary people are struggling to make ends meet and to figure out how much basic items will actually cost each day, with inflation expected to reach 100% by the end of the year.
The government has thrown the kitchen sink at the problem, but neither IMF austerity to restore confidence in the peso nor direct intervention through price controls have worked to tame runaway inflation. COVID also did a lot of damage, and, to be fair, Argentina’s economic disaster is a legacy of decades of mismanagement, spending beyond its means, and stiffing creditors.
What’s more, no one knows who’ll run in the end. If the center-right Macri throws his hat in the ring, he’ll probably face either deeply unpopular President Alberto Fernández or frenemy VP Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (no relation), who held the top job from 2007-2015. Both are from the traditional left — especially Cristina, whom Argentines refer to by her first name.
A face-off between candidates like this would be deeply polarizing for a country that has swung back and forth on the ideological spectrum twice in the past decade. Macri — who’s not a shoo-in for the nomination if he runs — is as loved by his supporters and hated by his critics as Cristina is.
The feisty vice president is currently under indictment for corruption, but Cristina will probably never see the inside of a prison cell even if she’s convicted. And she demonstrated that she still owns the streets after surviving a recent assassination attempt.
There's also a domestic soccer angle with Macri. The former president got into politics after winning many trophies as president of Boca Juniors, whose supporters call themselves La mitad más uno (Half plus one) as the most popular team in Buenos Aires and all of Argentina.
You’d think that Boca fans would be all in for the man that led the team to so much success — yet most xeneizes are working-class people who’ve historically voted left and won’t cheer for a rich businessman like Macri. Perhaps that’s why the ex-president has, until now, favored Patricia Bullrich, his popular tough-on-crime former security minister.
Whoever leads the opposition ticket is favored to win. A recent poll shows that two-thirds of Argentinians want the ruling Peronista coalition out of power. That’s consistent with a broader trend in the region: For nearly a decade now, Latin Americans have been consistently voting out incumbents, regardless of their ideology.
One rising presidential hopeful is upstart Javier Milei, an eccentric libertarian economist and TV personality who claims not to have brushed his hair since he was 13. The independent Milei, who’s making waves with populist gimmicks like auctioning off his paycheck, would need strong party backing to go all the way, but his early surge tells you a lot about where Argentine voters’ heads are right now.
One thing is clear — the current president is toast. "Even if Argentina wins the World Cup, it is almost certain that Fernández would lose the election," says Eurasia Group analyst Luciano Sigalov. "Whatever politicians like to say, there is no evidence of a relationship between success in sport and politics."
Thought bubble: Although Macri's approval ratings had already started to drop before the 2018 World Cup in Russia, his numbers really began to tank soon after Argentina was eliminated due to the president’s own economic blunders. He never recovered and lost his re-election bid to Fernández.
It sure looks like the incumbent will meet the same fate as his predecessor — if Fernández runs at all.
Iran fans hold Freedom For Iran and Women Life Freedom placards before the 2022 FIFA World Cup Group B match against England in Doha, Qatar.
Great Satan on the pitch, big troubles at home — Iran's World Cup dilemma
The US and Iran go to war Tuesday ... on a soccer pitch. The two sides meet in their last first-round game of the Qatar World Cup, and whoever wins will almost certainly advance to the knockout stage — a first for Iran.
But this time the long-running geopolitical tensions between the two bitter enemies have taken a back seat to the ongoing women-led protests against the theocratic regime in Iran, the biggest the country has seen since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Iranian players have been caught in the crossfire. In the lead-up to the tournament, they were bashed by anti-government activists who viewed them as puppets of the ayatollahs. Some prominent figures even called for FIFA to ban Iran from the World Cup over the regime's brutal crackdown. But how things have changed since the ball started rolling in Qatar.
Before their first game against England, Iran’s players grabbed global headlines by staying quiet during their national anthem in solidarity with the protesters. That smoothed things over with their critics but enraged the ayatollahs. The regime responded by warning Team Melli, as the squad is popularly known, to do its patriotic duty in their next match, or else. In the end, they did — albeit without the joy they showed two hours later following an epic injury-time victory over Wales.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.Sina Saemian, the Iranian-born UK host of the Gol Bezan soccer podcast, is almost certain that Team Melli will sing the anthem on Tuesday ahead of kickoff. However, he says, there will be zero passion because "whenever you're forced to do something against your will, you'll automatically want to rebel against it."
And it's not just the ayatollahs who are piling on the pressure. If the players stay silent, their families might get arrested; but if they do more than just mumble the lyrics, the side they actually back will resent them for it.
For US-based Dara Zarandi, a contributor to the Team Melli Talk podcast and YouTube show, "the players are in a really, really sensitive and difficult situation. And unfortunately, the people who are [against] the national team either don't acknowledge the reality of the situation or just don't honestly know what's going on behind the scenes."
And what about facing the all-powerful United States, Iran's geopolitical nemesis? Just two months ago, the narrative would have been a death match vs. Great Satan, which is punishing Iran with crippling economic sanctions over its nuclear program.
More recently, though, Saemian says that many Iranians have come to "see that actually, the enemy is within. The enemy is inside." For sure, he adds, they are still wary of the US, but thanks to the protests the "anti-American sentiment has somewhat decreased."
The buzz about the game has hardly been a repeat of France '98, when Iran pulled off a huge upset by defeating the stronger US team by 2-1 and kicking it out of the knockout stage.
Back then, the US government went out of its way to downplay the non-soccer stakes because Washington saw a window of opportunity for warmer ties following the 1997 landslide election of reformist President Mohammad Khatami. Meanwhile, Tehran doubled down on the political drama, dubbing the match the "Mother of all Games." (Not-so-fun fact: At halftime, Iranian officials seized the team's passports to prevent the players from returning home if they lost.)
Now, the Biden administration has been firm in its support for the protesters and USMNT weighed in scrubbing the emblem of the Islamic Republic from Iran's national flag on social media. The regime —which until then had barely mentioned the match, as it was busy arresting and killing demonstrators — responded by demanding FIFA expel the US from the tournament.
Whatever the final result, the politicization of the national soccer squad amid the protests will have staying power — and the anti-government movement only stands to benefit if Team Melli does well in Qatar. For Zarandi, the further the team goes in the tournament, "the more people will be talking about what's going on."
One name to watch is striker Sardar Azmoun, the most outspoken supporter of the protesters. If he scores the winning goal, don't be surprised by a celebration that might win hearts and minds but also have serious consequences for his loved ones.
Throwback: When Iran qualified for its first World Cup in 1978, the country was also in political turmoil — although the mass rallies and strikes against autocratic Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi took a summer break that coincided with the tournament. Iran's captain stayed home to protest the shah's repression, the team had a dismal run, and months later Pahlavi was out.
Will history repeat itself?
- US-Iran World Cup sportsmanship amid political tensions - GZERO Media ›
- Why Iranians celebrated their soccer team’s World Cup elimination - GZERO Media ›
- Iran's morality police: not disbanded - GZERO Media ›
- Podcast: After Mahsa Amini: Iran’s fight for freedom, with Masih Alinejad - GZERO Media ›
- Iranian activists want the West to stop legitimizing Iran's regime - GZERO Media ›
The Graphic Truth: The Mother of All Games 2.0
The US plays, of all countries, Iran (!) at the Qatar men's soccer World Cup on Tuesday in the most politically charged game of the most political edition of the tournament in decades. What’s more, if Team Melli — as Iran's team is popularly known — wins, it’ll advance to the knockout stage for the first time. (Not to mention that Iran won't miss a chance to beat Great Satan at anything.) USMNT, for its part, wants revenge from France '98, when Iran won 2-1 in a major upset that Tehran billed at the time as the "Mother of all Games." We take a look at how the two geopolitical rivals compare on some soccer and non-soccer metrics.
World Cup politics go way beyond Qatar
The 2022 World Cup now underway in Qatar is the most political edition of the tournament in decades. But it's also playing out politically far away from the host country in parts of the globe where fans often pay more attention to the sport than to their elected officials.
For instance, in Brazil, supporters of left-wing President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva want to reclaim the yellow jersey from the fans of outgoing far-right President Jair Bolsonaro. Brazilian progressives say Bolsonaro’s supporters co-opted the color of their five-time winning national side during the recent presidential election campaign.
Let’s find more examples from a few Eurasia Group soccer nuts, ahem, experts.
South America. Argentina has the best odds to go all the way in Qatar along with Brazil. It also has one of the highest inflation rates in the world, expected to top 100% by the end of the year (and you thought 8% in the US was bad!).
"Naturally, Argentines are not happy about their rapidly declining purchasing power, and they’re ready to kick President Alberto Fernández to the curb," says global macro analyst Sebastian Strauss. “Yet instead of fighting tooth and nail to tame inflation and hold onto power, the government is betting the house on a rather more unconventional way to make voters happy: winning the World Cup."
When asked to pick between victory and reining in inflation, Minister of Labor Kelly Olmos did not hesitate. One month won't really matter, and she can get around to inflation later — after the Albiceleste brings home the trophy. But if that happens, Strauss says, "it’ll be thanks to Leo Messi and company’s heroics in Qatar — not to Fernández and his posse watching in Buenos Aires.”
“Alas, they may still be rewarded for it," he adds. (Argentina’s next presidential election is in exactly one year.)
Africa. After winning the African Cup of Nations in January for the first time, Senegal was looking good to go far in Qatar. But national optimism has been dampened by Ballon d'Or runner-up and national hero Sadio Mané having to stay home due to a last-minute injury. Still, the team is stacked with stars playing in Europe — especially Chelsea full-back Kalidou Koulibaly and tireless Everton midfielder Idrissa Gueye.
What's more, ahead of the presidential election in 2024, the performance of the Teranga Lions may be of political significance, says Africa analyst Tochi Eni-Kalu.
"The ruling Benno Bokk Yakaar coalition has lost voter support over the last 18 months, so officials are hoping that a deep run in the tournament will indirectly boost domestic perceptions of their stewardship, particularly as President Macky Sall continues to mull an unconstitutional third-term bid," End-Kalu explains. "Unfortunately for Sall, recent history suggests that a potential [approval] rating bump will be short-lived at best.”
Indeed, he adds, the wild celebrations in February did not prevent the ruling coalition from losing its parliamentary majority a few months later: "Food for thought."
Europe. If you're a Serbia fan, the last thing you want is for this World Cup to get political again, says Matejic Strahinja from the office of the president. He has bitter memories of Russia 2018: Serbia lost to Switzerland with goals by two players originally from Kosovo who celebrated by flapping the double eagle from the Albanian flag to taunt Serbia, which fought a bitter war in Kosovo and refuses to recognize its independence.
In Qatar 2022, Strahinja looks forward to ditching the bitter Belgrade club rivalry between Red Star and Partizan to support Serbia as one.
"Support for one or the other runs in families, while neighborhoods or entire cities are split across fan club lines. However, one event stops all of that and unites Serbian fans every so often," he adds. "The World Cup is when these divisions turn into collective energy [behind supporting] the national team with the hopes that this time around, the guys might at least advance to the knockout stage.”
That is … until striker Alexsandar Mitrović misses a clear opportunity. After all, Strahinja — a Red Star diehard supporter — points out, “he used to play for Partizan."
Middle East & North Africa. “There’s a lot of excitement and buzz in the region over the first World Cup hosted by an Arab country, despite human rights issues in Qatar having become a focal point," says MENA analyst Sofia Meranto.
The emirate is using its hosting of the tournament to project regional soft power, with Qatari sports channel BeIN Sports broadcasting all matches for free. More broadly, she adds, the World Cup is “helping cement Qatar’s standing" in the region, where less than two years ago it was still under a blockade by four neighboring countries. This week, the opening ceremony was attended by the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the UAE. And in another first, the Qataris even allowed flights to bring in Israeli fans.
Meranto says to watch out for the Saudis, who "are probably eyeing closely what’s happening in Qatar as they’re hoping to host the World Cup in 2030, possibly with Egypt and Greece."This article comes to you from the Signal newsletter team of GZERO Media. Sign up today.