.jpg)
Google Search Trends released show Morocco’s team playing in the World Cup in Qatar has attracted global admiration for being Africa’s first team to reach the semi finals.
The Atlas Lions who lost to defending champions France will play against Croatia on Saturday evenng at the 45,000-strong Khalifa International Stadium in Doha. The data reveals the most searched players worldwide, top searched World Cup teams, with the latest Moroccan-France duel generating the highest spike in searches in the past week.
According to the data, top searched World Cup teams in the past week were Portugal, Argentina, Brazil, Croatia, and Morocco in that order. Before the tournament started, Kenyans together with 19 other African countries mostly searched for information about Portugal while Morocco with its 5 neighbours in northern Africa looked for information about Morocco’s national team while the rest of Africa searched for information about the Argentinian national team.
In the past week, the most searched players worldwide in order of popularity were Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo, formerly at Manchester United, Argentina’s Lionel Messi, Brazil’s Neymar, and France’s Kylian Mbappé, all who currently play for the PSG. Croatian football player Luka Modrić who plays for Spain’s Real Madrid closed the list of the top searched World Cup players in the past week, worldwide.
The semi-final match pitting Morocco against France was a major attraction with data reporting a 4,700 percent spike in France about French footballer Aurélien Djani Tchouaméni who also plays as a defensive midfielder for La Liga club Real Madrid while in Morocco, many searched for information about Abderrazak “Abdo” Hamdallah Moroccan footballer who plays as a striker for Egyptian premier league side, Al-Ittihad.
France and Morocco reported breakout searches in the past week for Moroccan midfielder 22 year Azzedine Ounahi whose performance in the knockout matches against Spain and Portugal was exemplary. The player who turns out for French Ligue 1 club Angers awed the world with his pitch tactics during the duel against France and emerged as best player on the pitch. Searches for Moroccan forward Walid Cheddira, who plays as a forward for Serie B club Bari in Italy, hit a 1,100 percent spike in France while in Morocco, locals searched for information about their team players.
The Search data shows that the Morocco-France duel also attracted individual player searches with Morocco’s Achraf Hakimi, Yassine Bounou, Hakim Ziyech, Sofiane Boufal and Sofyan Amrabat being the most searched soccer stars in that order. The most searched for players in the French side were Kylian Mbappé, Olivier Jonathan Giroud, Karim Benzema, Antoine Griezmann, and Aurélien Tchouaméni.
Top trending questions on the World Cup in the past week in France were ‘who is in the semi-final of the World Cup, when is the semi-final of the World Cup, why is it Ronaldo’s last World Cup, how many times has Argentina won the World Cup and who has won the World Cup twice in a row? There was also a spike in top trending questions on the Moroccan team in France notably; ‘does Hakimi (Achraf ) speak French, what is the Moroccan team worth, who is Hakimi (Achraf), who is the Moroccan coach and why are they called the Atlas Lions?
Top trending questions on the World Cup in the past week in Morocco were ‘countries that have won the World Cup in order, African teams that reached the semi-finals of the World Cup, the remaining teams in the World Cup, what is the value of world cup 2022 and who won the world cup 2014?’
Morocco’s football loving public also sought to know more about ‘what time will the Moroccan national team play against France in Morocco time, the plan by which the French national team plays, the number of matches played by the Moroccan national team against France, what teams played against the French national team in the World Cup in Qatar and the year that France crowned the World Cup.
On Saturday, Morocco faces Croatia for the third position contest while France meets Argentina in the grand finale taking place on Sunday at Lusail Stadium, where the winner of the World Cup 2022 will be known.