“This Time For Africa” – Shakira Charges Morocco To Win FIFA World Cup For Africa
Colombian singer and songwriter, Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll, professionally known as Shakira, has used her 2010 FIFA World Cup song Anthem to hail historic Morocco win against Portugal, charging them to win this year’s FIFA World Cup for Africa.
Morocco created history on Saturday as they became the first African team ever to reach the semifinals of the FIFA World Cup, beating Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal to book an epic semi-final with reigning champion, France.
Morocco Saturday became the first ever African team to reach the semifinals of the FIFA World Cup as they defeated Portugal 1-0. The Atlas Lions created history for African football. In the nine decades of the showpiece tournament, three African teams have played quarterfinals before Morocco but none qualified for the semifinals. Cameroon, Senegal and Ghana are the three African sides who reached the quarterfinals in 1990, 2002 and 2010, respectively.
The moment of history had many taking to social media to shower praise on Morocco for the feat. Among them was Colombian singer and songwriter Shakira. “This time for Africa,” she wrote on Twitter, posting a line from the 2010 FIFA World Cup anthem she had sung when the edition was hosted by South Africa.
The song, “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)”, featured the South African band Freshly-ground. The song that draws inspiration from the original Cameroon song “Zamina mina (Zangaléwa)”, was released on May 7, 2010, by Epic Records as the official 2010 FIFA World Cup song. This has been one of the catchiest World Cup anthems till date.
This time for Africa!! 👏🇲🇦 #WorldCup
— Shakira (@shakira) December 10, 2022
Shakira was not the only celebrity who took to social media to congratulate Morocco, which made World Cup history earlier also as the first African team to earn a point in 1970, and the first African team to reach the knockouts in 1986.
Billionnaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Google CEO Sundar Pichai were among the others who posted their reactions on Twitter.
🇲🇦🇲🇦 Congrats Morocco!! 🇲🇦🇲🇦
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 10, 2022
Proud 🤲🏼 What a team! 🇲🇦❤️ What an achievement for the African continent & the Muslim world 🤲🏼 Great to see such a fairytale is still possible in modern football – this will give so many people so much power & hope ❤️❤️⚽ #Morocco #WorldCup #Qatar2022
— Mesut Özil (@M10) December 10, 2022
No opposition player has managed to score against Morocco 🇲🇦 since Walid Regragui took charge on August 31.
Morocco 2-0 Chile
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Belgium 0-2 Morocco
Canada 1-2 Morocco (own goal)
Morocco 0-0 Spain
Morocco 1-0 Portugal pic.twitter.com/y5qW8gFYzp— Usher Komugisha (@UsherKomugisha) December 10, 2022