The promise of a difficult debut for Brazil in the 2026 World Cup came true on Saturday afternoon (13) in East Rutherford, on the outskirts of New York. The team faced a tough opponent at the MetLife Stadium and struggled to achieve a 1-1 draw with Morocco.
After a poor start, in which they received a beautiful goal from Saibari and could have scored more, the team led by Carlo Ancelotti managed to balance their actions and equalized the score in the first half, in a characteristic move by Vinicius Junior on the left.
The Moroccan team slowed down after the break, and the Brazilian team improved a little with some of their substitutions – Danilo and Fabinho entered, then Luiz Henrique, Matheus Cunha and Danilo Santos. But the score did not change again.
Each of the teams, therefore, started with one point in Group C. The group will have its first round completed on Saturday night, with the clash between Haiti and Scotland, in Foxborough, on the outskirts of Boston.
“I think we didn’t start the game well. The team was a little worried, we lost a lot of duels, a lot of balls. The first half wasn’t good. It was a difficult match because Morocco is a good team. Now, it’s time to look at the next game,” said Ancelotti.
The match in East Rutherford was attended by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. He recorded a video before the duel remembering Socrates and Corinthian Democracy, but he didn’t see anything like the Doctor on the field.
The start of Brazil’s match was disastrous, dominated by an opponent who seemed to have more players on the field. Carlo Ancelotti opted to use Ibañez on the right flank, placed Douglas Santos on the left and surprised by using Igor Thiago as a center forward. It didn’t work.
Morocco pressed in the attacking field, stole the ball and lined up opportunities. El Aynaoui and Bouaddi exchanged passes with ease in the midfield region. On the left wing, El Khannouss had a wide advantage over Ibañez. In seven minutes the African team had already had two opportunities to finish inside the area.
The yellow-green team had its first escape in the 14th minute, when Raphinha made the ball reach Vinicius Junior on the left wing. Igor Thiago, at the edge of the small area, wasted the great chance and barely touched the ball with his header.
The move did not change the outlook of the dispute, and the goal that the team in red already deserved came in the 21st minute. Paquetá had difficulty controlling a strong pass from Ibañez and allowed the counterattack. Brahim Díaz received it from Mazraoui and found Saibari behind Marquinhos and Gabriel Magalhães. In Alisson’s face, the number 11 covered him up.
The hydration break came in handy for Ancelotti, in which he made an adjustment: he opened Raphinha on the right, taking Paquetá out. It didn’t change from water to wine, but Brazil managed to balance its actions and have more control of the ball in midfield.
Willing to face the marking repeatedly, Vinicius Junior was successful at 32. He passed it to Bruno Guimarães, received it back inside the area and managed to elude El Aynaoui before hitting a good shot into Bounou’s left corner, to equalize.
It was only from then on that the first cries of Brazil exploded. Surprised and impatient until then, the fans of the five-time champion team still saw two good moments before the break, a volley from Paquetá and a header from Marquinhos.
At this point, the coach had already asked Danilo, Fabinho and Matheus Cunha to start warming up. At half-time, he called on the first two, who replaced Ibañez and Casemiro – these two, who had done very poorly in the initial stage, were suspended with a yellow card.
The match had a slower pace in the final stage, but the main attacking moves came from Brazil. After the overwhelming start, Morocco slowed down and began to show that they were satisfied with the draw – goalkeeper Bounou asked for medical attention more than once.
To give the attack greater mobility, Ancelotti called on Luiz Henrique and Matheus Cunha, who replaced Igor Thiago and Paquetá. There were quickly some good moves with the participation of the skilled Luiz Henrique.
The best opportunity came in the 33rd minute, when Vinicius Junior received the ball on the left on a counterattack and left Raphinha in a great position to finish. The number 11 caught the ball poorly, however, and the match ended in a draw.
“The debut is always very difficult. We have to improve, keep evolving, because the competition is just beginning. This is the World Cup, there won’t be an easy game”, said Vinicius, who wants to see greater control of possession in the next matches.
“We have to hold the ball more, stay with it more, move the game from one side to the other. Many times, the opponents will defend themselves and counterattack. But now there’s not much to talk about. It’s just work because the second game is very close”, he added.
The debut match showed that it was not unreasonable to previously treat it as balanced. It may sound strange to those accustomed to a previous order of football, but the afternoon’s clash pitted the sixth and seventh placed teams in the FIFA (International Football Federation) rankings.
After achieving the best campaign by an African team in the history of the World Cup, with the 2022 semi-finals, Morocco had a cycle of good results on the way to 2026. It won the African Cup of Nations and the Arab Cup. In the World Cup qualifiers, they had eight wins in eight games, with 22 goals scored and two conceded.
The team also reached the difficult decision of the most important tournament on their continent, the African Cup of Nations. They lost on the field to Senegal, but because their opponent left the field in protest against the refereeing, they were declared champions.
The defeat on all four lines cost coach Walid Regragui his job. But, as the result recorded was a triumph by WO, the team arrived in the United States with an official record of 29 unbeaten matches.
The coach since March has been Mohamed Ouahbi, who took over the main group after a great performance with the Moroccan under-20 team, world champions last year. The switch was at the last minute, but Ouahbi received a more solid foundation than that found by Ancelotti in Brazil, just over a year ago.
The Italian is the team’s fourth captain since the 2022 World Cup. He succeeded Ramon Menezes –defeated by Morocco in a friendly in March 2023–, Fernando Diniz and Dorival Júnior, with just 12 games to try to give the team a new look in preparation for the World Cup.
It wasn’t enough for a victory in the difficult debut. Now, he is working for triumphs against theoretically more fragile opponents following Group C: Haiti, next Friday (19), in Philadelphia, and Scotland, the following Wednesday (24), in Miami Gardens.
