Manchester United defender Noussair Mazraoui has suffered an injury scare just days before the start of the World Cup. The full-back was forced off after only 29 minutes of Morocco's friendly against Norway at the Sports Illustrated Stadium on Sunday night.
The severity of the issue remains unclear, but Mazraoui went down feeling discomfort before being replaced by Youssef Belammari. Morocco begin their Group C campaign against Brazil at the MetLife Stadium on Saturday night.
Mazraoui's World Cup Expectations
Speaking recently to the United website, Mazraoui discussed the upcoming tournament and his conversations with club teammates. "Yeah, it was a little bit different. I'm talking like I've done four World Cups, it was my first one!" he said.
"I think it's different, of course, mid-season, it's different in every aspect, physically, mentally as well. End of the season, you have the whole season [that you have played before it], just half-season [like Qatar was] is different."
"But what I remember from that World Cup is we just went in there with a good fight. Everybody was free in their head. We knew we had a strong team. We knew we could do something, but we never expected to be in the semi-final. So that was a big surprise for us, I think for the whole world, and we enjoyed every minute of that."
Talks with Teammates
Mazraoui also revealed he has been discussing the World Cup with United teammates Casemiro and Matheus Cunha. "When you have time, we talk about the club, everything. This subject as well, especially [with] Cunha, because he's probably going to play left or right winger, [if he's] on my [side], then [it's] 1v1, so it's going to be fun."
"I think we've been doing really good on an international level as well as in Africa itself. So yeah, expectations are much higher than they were four years ago because we've reached that and because we've done pretty well the last four or five years."
"So yeah, the expectations are bigger and it's up to us to handle that kind of pressure and to show again that you can do the same thing that you did four years ago, and it's not just luck and it's going to be like a constant level. I think that's our biggest ambition for us."
