Morocco, Norway Make Their Point in Different Ways
Morocco scored the pretty goals. Norway got the clumsy ones.
Both teams earned a point Wednesday in their World Cup openers with a 2-2 tie in a wide-open affair.
Tahar set up two goals with long precision passes, while Norway scored twice following collisions during free kicks.
Moustafa El Hadji scored in the 38th minute and Abdeljilil Hadda in the 59th for the “Atlas Lions.” Youssef Chippo had an own goal in first-half injury time and defender Dan Eggen scored in the 61st for the Norwegians.
“Both Norway and Morocco played well,” Eggen said. “Morocco was as good as we feared. This is not disappointing, because Morocco has a good team and they played very well. Both Scotland and Brazil will have problems with Morocco.”
In the first meeting between the countries, Eggen scored when Stig Inge Bjornebye’s free kick was sprung loose in the penalty box after a collision between defender Noureddine Naybet and goalkeeper Driss Benzekri. Amid the disarray, Eggen opportunistically headed the ball into the net.
Two minutes earlier, Hadda had taken Tahar’s perfect upfield pass and raced past Eggen before settling himself and placing the ball into the upper right corner to put Morocco ahead 2-1.
“We were rather disappointed when, after the first goal, we made that mistake,” Morocco Coach Henri Michel said. “This is our weak point and we have to work on that.”
The tie extended Norway’s international unbeaten streak to 15 games.
The Norwegians have already doubled their scoring output from the 1994 World Cup, when they scored only one goal in three games before being eliminated. The Moroccans also have an immediate show of improvement after losing all three games before heading home from the United States four years ago.
“I think we started very well and should have scored very easily, but didn’t,” Norwegian Coach Egil Olsen said, referring to Ole Gunnar Solskjar’s point-blank miss early. “After that we lost control. We couldn’t stop them from creating chances. They were tired at the end of the match when we were the better team.”
Morocco took its first lead on a splendid move by Hadji. After taking the long pass from Tahar, the midfielder sped down the left side and spun Eggen around before blasting home a right-footed shot.
Chippo’s error came after Benzekri collided with Henning Berg as they leaped for Bjornebye’s free kick. The ball went off Berg’s shoulder and straight to Chippo, who missed badly as he tried to clear the ball wide and instead glanced the ball off the inside of the post and into the goal.
