Moroccan Olympic team star Sofiane Rahimi scored a goal and led the “Atlas Lions” to the second round of the football competitions of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, after the Atlas Lions outscored their Iraqi counterpart by three clear goals on Tuesday, July 30, at the end of the group stage.
In front of tens of thousands of thirsty fans, the match between the Moroccan and Iraqi teams took place, where the Moroccans were able to win the match and take the lead together, thanks to the trio Rahimi, Al-Zalzouli and Richardson.
Rahimi’s goal was his fourth in the Paris 2024 tournament, moving the Al Ain Emirati star into the top scorers’ spot at the tournament, having scored twice for his country in the 2-1 win over Argentina in the opening game, then a goal against Ukraine in the second round, and wrapping up the first round with another goal against Iraq.
Rahimi became the first Arab player in Olympic history to finish the first round of the football competition as the tournament’s top scorer.
Since the adoption of the group system at the Olympic Games in the middle of the last century, more precisely at the 1960 Rome Games, not all Arab players managed to finish the first round as the top scorers of the competition, before Rahimi came to write a new history for himself and his country at the Olympic Games.
The previous best Arab number in the Olympic groups was that of Moroccan Ahmed Fares in the 1972 Munich tournament and Kuwaiti Faisal Ali Al-Dakhil in the 1980 Moscow tournament, where each of them scored 3 goals, but neither of them finished the first round in the first round scorers list.
At Munich 1972, German national team star Bernd Nickel and Hungarian striker Antel Donaj finished the first round as top scorers with 6 goals each. At Moscow 1980, Soviet Union player Andreev was crowned top scorer of the first round with 4 goals.
The Moroccan national team qualified at the top of Group 2 with 6 points, on goal difference, against Argentina, who finished second.
The Moroccan national team will play the quarter-final match of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games against the United States next Friday at the Parc des Princes Stadium. If the Atlas Lions team defeats its American counterpart, it will face Spain and Japan in the final. semi-finals.
