Morocco beat Ivory Coast 1-0 to reach the Africa Cup of Nations quarter-finals and knock out the champions.
Rachid Alioui scored with a terrific shot from 25 yards to earn the win for Morocco and their coach Herve Renard, who led the Ivorians to the 2015 title.
Ivory Coast needed a win to go through but gave a listless performance, creating only two chances of note.
Wilfried Zaha shot weakly from 12 yards, while Salomon Kalou’s header from a tight angle clipped a post.
The Elephants lacked urgency in their play and go home after appearing not to put up a fight.
Even after going behind they were unable to cause the organised and disciplined Morocco defence any problems.
Morocco went into the game knowing that a draw was very likely to be enough for them to qualify from Group C and their game plan from the start was to stay compact and hit on the counter-attack.
It served to frustrate their opponents, who opted for the long-ball approach on a shocking pitch and failed to find any penetration.
Morocco could have added a second on the counter-attack but 19-year-old full-back Hamza Mendyl shot into the side netting after running half the length of the pitch.
They will play the winner of Group D in the last eight on Sunday.
Join GhanaStar.com to receive daily email alerts of breaking news in Ghana. GhanaStar.com is your source for all Ghana News. Get the latest Ghana news, breaking news, sports, politics, entertainment and more about Ghana, Africa and beyond.
(Via: CitiFM Online Ghana)
