Morocco Coach Regragui Expresses Remorse Over Post-Match Brawl with DR Congo

"It happens in football, I have a lot of respect for Mbemba," Walid Regragui said in the post-match press conference, trying to calm the situation. "It’s maybe the adrenaline that made him respond like that. What’s a shame, and that’s what I told my players, we should have stayed calmer, Congo and us, we didn’t give a good image. After that, it’s maybe with the heat, the tension was a bit high with everyone. There’s no problem between Mbemba and me, or the team, it’s over now." "It’s very hot, on the bench we’re already tired, so the players... There was a bit of frustration on both sides," Sébastien Desabre, coach of the DR Congo, also said. "These are men’s matches so it’s normal. That’s what’s beautiful. There were tensions, it’s calmed down."

"Against Morocco, we’re going to war. It’s already a final," the DR Congo captain, Chancel Mbemba, had declared in the pre-match press conference. Signs of tensions between the two countries. On Sunday, the match between Morocco and DR Congo (1-1) ended with a brawl between the two teams at the final whistle. An altercation took place between the Congolese captain and the coach of the Moroccan team after Chancel Mbemba shook his hand without looking at him, provoking the latter’s annoyance. "Look at me, look at me!" Regragui would have said to the Congolese captain. A heated verbal exchange that quickly escalated into a brawl involving players from both teams.

The Congolese then mimicked the VAR gesture, seemingly indicating that there was indeed no handball on a previous action. In the aftermath, Youssef En-Nesyri, visibly angry with Mbemba for having disrespected his coach, wanted to get into it with the Marseille player. Yassine Bounou held him back. The President of the Royal Moroccan Football Federation, Fouzi Lekjaâ, also intervened to calm tempers.