11JUN

Brazil draw Morocco short of forwards

3 min read

09:02UTC

A Brazil missing four first-choice forwards open against Morocco, the only African side ever to reach a men's World Cup semi-final, at the New Jersey final venue on Saturday.

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Key takeaway

Brazil open without four first-choice forwards against the only African side to reach a World Cup semi-final.

A Brazil side missing four first-choice forwards face Morocco on 13 June at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, the ground that also hosts the final on 19 July. Morocco arrive as the only African nation to have reached a men's World Cup semi-final, the run they made four years ago, and head coach Walid Regragui has kept that core together for 2026.

Brazil go in without Neymar, whose calf problem cost him the opener , alongside the earlier losses of three more first-choice forwards. That leaves Vinicius Junior and Raphinha to carry an attack shorn of its first-choice options. Ancelotti said he had "no regrets" taking the injured Neymar to the tournament, but the selection reality is that Brazil open their campaign at reduced strength against a side built to punish exactly that.

Morocco can call on captain Achraf Hakimi, Noussair Mazraoui and Azzedine Ounahi, a spine with Champions League pedigree and tournament experience. On paper Brazil are Group C favourites; on the evidence of the team sheet, the opener is the most awkward first fixture any of the pre-tournament favourites have drawn.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Brazil and Morocco meet on 13 June at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey in what is arguably the most open contest of the opening round. Brazil are one of the world's most famous football nations, with five World Cup wins; but they are missing four of their planned forward and defensive starters through injury. Their star player Neymar won't play. Morocco are the current holders of the record for best-ever African performance at a World Cup, having reached the semi-finals in Qatar in 2022; beating Spain and Portugal along the way. Their coach Walid Regragui has kept the same squad structure, with Achraf Hakimi leading a side that presses aggressively and transitions quickly. This match is genuinely hard to call, which is unusual for a Brazil opener.

What could happen next?

Consequence
If Morocco take points against a depleted Brazil in the opener, they move into Group C pole position and Brazil must beat their remaining opponents to guarantee advancement, complicating Ancelotti's plan to manage Neymar back to fitness gradually.

Source Landscape

Primary parallel: Brazil faced Senegal at the 2002 World Cup group stage with a weakened forward line, Ronaldo only partially fit after two years of injury absence. Senegal won 1-0 in one of the tournament's major upsets. The mechanism matches 2026: African side with an organised, counter-attacking shape; Brazil with an elite forward unavailable; structural assumptions that Brazil's depth covers the gap. In 2002, it didn't.

Counter-parallel: Brazil beat Morocco 1-0 in their only previous World Cup meeting, at the 1998 France group stage, with Bebeto and Ronaldo combining in a forward line that gave them pace in behind Morocco's defensive organisation. The difference in 2026: Morocco's defensive depth has improved dramatically since 1998, with Hakimi, Mazraoui, and Aguerd providing the most technically accomplished full-back pairing Morocco have ever assembled.

Consensus view: The CIES Football Observatory's squad analysis and French football weekly L'Equipe both assess Morocco as entering this fixture as the higher-probability points-taker. CIES rates Morocco's first-choice XI by club-level performance index at a higher aggregate than Brazil's depleted starting lineup for 13 June; which must cover the absences of Neymar, Rodrygo, Estevao, and Militao with players ranked 2-4 spots below Morocco's equivalent position across the spine of the team.

Counter-view: Brazilian tactical analyst Cassius Sousa of Globo Esporte argues that raw squad-quality indices miss the organising effect of Ancelotti's defensive structure, which conceded only three goals in ten qualifying matches.

Vinicius Junior and Raphinha at their best are capable of the individual moment that ends a tactically disciplined contest; Morocco's 2022 success came partly from being underestimated, a factor that will not recur against a side Regragui has prepared for intensively since the Qatar semi-final.

Key tension: Whether Walid Regragui adapts Morocco's Qatar block-and-counter approach for a fixture in which they are now, arguably, the stronger team on paper; and whether that psychological shift from underdog to co-favourite serves or disrupts their proven system.

First Reported In

Update #18 · 0 Days to Go: the football finally starts

ESPN· 11 Jun 2026

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Different Perspectives

FIFA

FIFA's 48-team format, projecting $13.1 billion in 2026-cycle revenue against $7.5 billion for 2019-2022, opened on 11 June despite simultaneous legal, labour and security crises. Expanding to 48 sides structurally reduced the stakes of individual group results, which is both its commercial logic and the mechanism that let the build-up machinery run without cancellation.

Brazil

Brazil open Group C against Morocco on 13 June missing Neymar, Rodrygo, Estevao and Militao; Ancelotti expressed no regrets carrying an injured Neymar and targets the Haiti fixture on 20 June for his return. Morocco's full-strength XI is rated higher by performance index than Brazil's depleted opener lineup, making this the most awkward first fixture any pre-tournament favourite has drawn.

United States

The co-host avoided its most damaging opening image when UNITE HERE Local 11 reached a tentative deal with Legends on 9 June, pulling a threatened strike off the table days before Pochettino's 4-3-3 faces Paraguay. The agreement requires a ratification vote this week; rejection returns the threat before the first US match.

South Africa

Bafana Bafana returned to the World Cup after a 16-year absence in Hugo Broos's final tournament before retirement, arriving at the Azteca opener with a counter-attacking shape to exploit possession-heavy hosts at altitude. Broos told his players to silence the Mexican crowd; his pace through Appollis and Mofokeng sets the tone for Group A.

Mexico

Mexico opened the tournament at home on 11 June carrying a 0W-5L-2D opener record and a sold-out Azteca, while the official Zocalo fan zone was occupied by teachers and families of the disappeared on the same morning. Sheinbaum's offer of 18 alternative venues rather than a clearance order reflects her calculation that force produces worse headlines than co-existence.

Norwegian Football Federation

NFF president Lise Klaveness sent a letter of support backing FairSquare's Article 15 ethics complaint against Infantino, explicitly noting Norway was acting alone as a deliberate signal. The filing converted an external NGO campaign into the first internal federation action against the FIFA president, arriving in the same fortnight as Platini's Paris criminal complaint.