Placing fourth at the World Cup, Morocco proved they can compete with the best teams in world soccer, according to head coach Walid Regragui.

In the third-place play-off on Saturday, Croatia defeated Morocco 2-1 thanks to goals from Josko Gvardiol and Mislav Orsic, capping Morocco's remarkable World Cup run.

They overcame heavyweights like Spain and Portugal before losing to France in the semifinals to become the first country from Africa to make it that far in the world's premier football competition.

Regragui thinks that the Atlas Lions proved their claim to be regarded as one of the world's best footballing nations, despite the fact that Morocco's campaign ended in defeat.

"Tomorrow morning we will take stock, and realise we all made a fantastic achievement here," Regragui told reporters at his post-match news conference.

"We played Croatia twice, one of the top three teams in the world. We played against Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium and Canada, that’s wonderful.

"We have an objective of winning the World Cup one day. Morocco showed we can go toe to toe with these teams. We are now one of the top four teams in the world."

Captured the hearts of us all, we'll be seeing you soon @EnMaroc 🇲🇦🦁 pic.twitter.com/nfARWEoAq7

— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) December 17, 2022

Asked if he would change anything about Morocco's tournament, Regragui replied: "Honestly I would say nothing.

"We had 0.01 per cent chance of winning the tournament at the outset. We managed to get to the last four.

"We played some of the powerhouses of football. If you told me we'd get this far, number four in the world, I'd have accepted that straight away.

"We deserve respect. They fought until the end, showed hard graft. That’s football, some nations are stronger than us. France were, Croatia were tonight, but only slightly stronger.

"For 2026, if I'm still in charge, I'll have more experience and maybe things will change, and in 2026 we will realise the achievement we've made in 2022."

Morocco's final match in Qatar saw a number of controversial officiating decisions, with the final whistle met by intense protests from Regragui's players towards the referee.

Achraf Hakimi, Morocco's star right-back, was reportedly involved in a row with FIFA president Gianni Infantino in the tunnel after the match.

It comes after the Royal Morocco Football Federation lodged a complaint to FIFA over referee Cesar Ramos' performance during their semi-final defeat to France.

However, Regragui was keen not to focus too much on the referee's display, while he defended his players' behaviour after the game.

"When you lose you always get disappointed, upset," Regragui stated. "My players are great competitors, I don’t think there was a lack of respect.

"We sometimes overreact at the end of games, it happens. We just weren’t at the level we've set.

"We focus on what we were lacking. We can't hide behind the refereeing, that’s not the Moroccan way. We let the association deal with any official issues."