Walid Regragui, the coach of Morocco, hopes to see Cristiano Ronaldo on the bench once more despite the fact that Portugal may have looked better in the round of 16 without him.
After getting into a heated dispute with Portugal’s head coach during their final World Cup group match against South Korea, Ronaldo was benched by Fernando Santos.
Portugal defeated Switzerland 6-1 despite the absence of Ronaldo, 37, who was replaced by Goncalo Ramos, who scored an incredible hat-trick.
When his team faces Morocco in the quarterfinals, Santos will undoubtedly field the same lineup once more, but Regragui would rather not.
“I don’t know if Ronaldo will start. I hope he won’t,” Regragui said. “As a coach, I know he’s one of the best players in history. I’d be delighted if he didn’t play.
“But we’re not going to focus on Portugal. They’re hungry, they also want to get into the history books.
“We’re going to have more supporters in the stadium, and we can do it.”
Throughout his pre-match news conference on Friday, Regragui outlined his ambition to make history, with Morocco already enjoying their best run at a World Cup.
Discussing pre-tournament predictions that had Morocco failing in the group stage, he said: “They all thought they knew who was going to win the World Cup. We are here, too.
“Our players are hungry. We’re not satisfied with what we’ve done so far.”