This article advances research on soft power foreign policy and sports diplomacy by examining how Morocco was able to translate its success in the 2022 World Cup into concrete diplomatic achievements. The overarching question I attempt to answer is: How can soft power foreign policy and sporting success translate into concrete advancements in a state’s foreign policy objectives? Given that Arabs and Africans claimed the Moroccan team as their own, the article poses the further sub-questions: How and why do states construct particular national identity narratives and how do these narratives, combined with sporting success, further states’ foreign policy objectives? Based on over 30 interviews including with officials from the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ethnographic fieldwork, and discourse analysis of the kings’ speeches and of media, the article contends that Morocco was able to translate its sporting success into further mobilization for the removal of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic from the African Union, convincing three additional states to sign the “Tangiers Appeal” and, despite Morocco’s unprecedented 5-time failure to win its bid to host the World Cup, FIFA awarded it the 2023 Club World Cup, providing it with an additional opportunity for sports diplomacy. Furthermore, I identify that the Moroccan state projects differing national identity narratives internally and externally, with internal narratives shaped by domestic politics and tensions and external ones driven by particular foreign policy objectives, such as international and regional recognition of its claim to Western Sahara. The literature on sports diplomacy and sports washing is growing, with recent emphasis on Gulf states, particularly Qatar and Saudi Arabia (Nober 2022). However, the existing literature on Moroccan foreign policy is limited and has often centered on the role of the King in foreign policy decision-making (Abouzzohour and Tome-Alonso 2019) or the country’s relations with Europe, particularly focusing on migration (Cherti and Collyer 2015; Willis and Messari 2007). Scholarship on Morocco’s soft power foreign policy is almost non-existent and has centered on religious foreign policy approaches toward West Africa (Wainscott 2018). My study not only contributes to the broader literature on soft power foreign policy and sports diplomacy but is also the first to explore Morocco’s use of sports success in its diplomatic toolbox. The article is also unique in its explanation of how national identity can be combined with sports success to further foreign policy objectives.