It’s amazing what belief and unity can do. This team is a special group with talented players who give it all for their shirt. Goalkeeper Yassine Bounou deserves so much credit for his performance against Spain, and they’ve been the top defensive team all tournament with one goal conceded in 360 minutes.

You can even go back to games leading up to the tournament, and they have just one goal conceded in eight games. They’ve reached a point where, sure, they probably didn’t expect to get this far, but they’ve proven to themselves and to the entire world that they fully belong.

They can absolutely beat Portugal on Saturday, and believing and never giving up can take you a long, long way. They won’t see much of the ball against the Portuguese, but that wasn’t a problem against Spain or in other games, because they’ve continued to find away. A team with nothing to lose is a dangerous team.

The Atlas lion represents much more: a popular, unifying totemic symbol, a character that seeps into everyday life and continues to shape the Morocco football  culture.

Morocco have also joined the exclusive list of African teams that have attained this status in global football.

After the eventful group round, things were getting normal as all the traditional European and South American giants were comfortably sailing through to the quarters which saw elimination of non-elites form other continents – US, Senegal, Australia, Japan and Korea Republic.

It was only Morocco who were left to play against the grain and they caused the only upset – obviously on pen and paper – to take their places among the giants in the last eight.

Now the African side have to face Portugal

King Mohammed VI congratulated the Atlas Lions on their incredible win against Spain during the round of 16 match at the World Cup.

King Mohammed VI held a phone call with President of Morocco’s Royal Football Federation Fouzi Lekjaa and head coach Walid Regraui, expressing his sincere congratulations to the national team and technical staff.