Morocco but head coach Mohamed Ouahbi is calling on his Premier League players to step up and help the Atlas Lions cope with the physical challenge from Scotland in Foxborough, Massachusetts, on Friday.
Morocco may be among the revelations of the World Cup so far after their confident, technically adroit opening 1-1 draw with Brazil, but it promises to be a different kind of threat posed by Scotland.
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Ismael Saibari opened the scoring for Morocco in the 21st minute before Vinícius Júnior equalised 11 minutes later at New Jersey's MetLife Stadium on Saturday, as the Atlas Lions went toe to toe with five-time champions Brazil in a composed and committed display.
The point took them up to a record high of sixth in the provisional FIFA World Rankings, but Ouahbi doesn't want them to get carried away and has urged his team to prepare for a battle when they face Scotland in their second group game.
"The physical challenge from the Scots will be present with the second balls or with aerial play," he told reporters on Thursday. "Brazil were physical too, but we need to stay in a compact block for as long as possible to have as many players as possible around the ball. We have a plan.
"We need to control the match, stay calm to avoid it becoming end to end, and we mustn't get too stressed," he added. "It's football, we have Premier League players, they excel at this, but we excel at other things too.
"I'm not going to talk to you about our plan, but we're ready."
Six of the players who featured against Brazil have played in the Premier League, with Issa Diop, Chadi Riad, Noussair Mazraoui and Chemsdine Talbi all current Premier League players.
There would have been more had Nayef Aguerd not been ruled out with injury for the tournament, although Morocco coped well in their opener despite missing their first choice centre-back as well as left winger Abde Ezzalzouli.
Ouahbi said that this Premier League experience will allow his team to combat a Scotland side that he expects to be much more rugged and physical than Brazil, who definitively lost the midfield battle to the Atlas Lions in their Group C opener at the weekend.
"We're still fixing a lot of things, and putting clear principles in place while leaving space for the players' creativity," he added. "Somethings I would have liked to have done before the World Cup, but we're having to do them during or afterwards.
"We have options for our starting 11, and we have solutions everywhere, but we're calm -- even after losing Nayef and Abde, the group didn't panic.
"We have to turn a page on Brazil. Scotland are still ahead of us in the group. They have three points and we have one. We need to do better, and just looking at the group will keep our feet on the ground."
While Morocco are riding high after their impressive opening draw with Brazil, Scotland are in a strong position after marking their return to the World Cup for the first time in 28 years by defeating Haiti 1-0, securing their first victory at the tournament since they defeated Sweden in 1990.
Morocco conclude their Group C campaign against Haiti in Atlanta on Wednesday, while Scotland will face Brazil in Miami at the same time.