‘Special emotions’ as Morocco’s Belgian-borns tackle ‘golden generation’

Morocco coach Walid Regragui said his team would try and draw on the "special emotions" of their Belgian-born players when they take on Roberto Martinez's side at the World Cup on Sunday.

The north Africans drew their opening game with Croatia 0-0 and victory over Belgium would put them on the brink of reaching the knockout stage for the first time since 1986.

Morocco have four players in their squad who were born in Belgium including Selim Amallah, who started against Croatia and plays his club football for Standard Liege.

Bilal El Khannouss and Anass Zaroury, who both played for Belgium's youth teams, and Ilias Chair were also born in the European country.

"It's a special match for them and we all know that," Regragui said at his pre-match press conference on Saturday.

"We're in the group of death. Everyone thought Canada would be an easy team but we can see now that won't be the case," said Regragui, referring to how Belgium struggled against the pace of a young Canada side despite winning their campaign opener by 1-0.

However, Regragui was keen to insist that his team were going into the game as underdogs.

"(Kevin) De Bruyne, (Eden) Hazard, (Axel) Witsel. They have great players on the bench -- (Romelu) Lukaku or (Michy) Batshuayi. Let's call a spade a spade, they're the favourites."

Belgium are still ranked second in the world but many of their "golden generation" of players are in their 30s and star forward Eden Hazard admitted Saturday that Belgium's best chance to win the World Cup had come and gone but said they still have the quality and experience to lift the trophy in Qatar.

"To be fair I think we had a better chance to win four years go," admitted 31-year-old Hazard.

"The team was better four years ago but … we have experience and the best goalkeeper in the world (Thibaut Courtois).

"We have one of the best midfields in the world, right now. We have good strikers. We have the team and I think it's just the desire to want to win, and the mentality," said Hazard.

Belgium coach Roberto Martinez was relaxed about his side's form, highlighting the lack of preparation time before the tournament in Qatar.

"Slowly you're going to see teams getting ready after three games in the tournament," Martinez said.

"So rather than having that preparation for a World Cup, for a major tournament where you have three friendlies and you have four weeks to get everybody in the optimal condition, the teams need to get ready while they are in the tournament and that's dangerous because it can cost you points," added the Belgium coach.