African powerhouse Morocco will hope they do not regret recalling Chelsea star Hakim Ziyech from a self-imposed exile for the 2023 World Cup in Qatar.
Ziyech is definitely a sublimely skilled footballer. Just ask Ajax Amsterdam, for whom his superb form in 2018-19 was crucial in one the best seasons for the Dutch giants in decades as they reached the Uefa Champions League semifinals for the first time since 1996-97. Ajax’s famed academy had battled to maintain the club’s continental competitiveness as budgets of clubs from Europe’s top four league’s swelled through the 2000s.
But finally a young generation that also included Frenkie de Jong, Matthijs de Ligt and Kasper Dolberg set the Champions League alight as Ajax beat Real Madrid in the last-16 and Juventus in the quarterfinals, before a last-gasp defeat to Tottenham Hotspur in the semis. Ziyech dazzled, scoring five goals in 17 games, and also notched 16 strikes as Ajax clinched the Eredivisie.
The right winger or deep-lying striker is also moody. Just ask former Chelsea coach Thomas Tuchel. Signed to the Blues by Frank Lampard in July 2020, Ziyech fell out of favour under Tuchel — the manager apparently frustrated by the player’s defensive work-rate — in the Chelsea that won two FA Cups and the 2020-21 Champions League. The winger’s poor form and mood has continued under Graham Potter and Chelsea reportedly want to ship the 29-year-old Moroccan out. That AC Milan are among his suitors is a mark of Ziyech’s class.
Another coach who might have an opinion on the enigma Ziyech can be is Hervé Renard. Two months after playing in a Champions League semifinal, in the celestial form he had been in, Ziyech provided precious little for Morocco at the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations in Egypt. Under a coach who had won the tournament with Zambia and Ivory Coast, a strong Morocco sought to put right having last lifted the trophy in 1976 and reaching one final since that in 2004.
After topping Group D, including a laboured, last-gasp win against Bafana Bafana, Morocco ended up being outperformed by Stuart Baxter’s SA. Bafana shocked Egypt in the second round and lost in the quarterfinals against Nigeria. Renard’s vaunted Atlas Lions flopped with a second-round exit on penalties against upstarts Benin. Ziyech’s muted display on the dance floor was part of the reason Morocco were not a hit at the party.
Ziyech fell out with respected 69-year-old Bosnian coach Vahid Halilhodžić, who was in charge of Morocco from 2019 until August, over a supposed unwillingness to play a friendly. The seven-month absence of the player was apparently part of the reason the former PSG, Algeria and Nantes manager lost his job.
Morocco should have achieved more than a lone win in the Nations Cup. In the World Cup, the Lions have been one of the continent’s pioneers.
Egypt were Africa’s first participants at a World Cup, in the second global event in 1934, when Fifa had just 36 members and the Pharaohs had to beat Palestine in a lone qualifier to reach the 16-team finals. They lost their lone match in Italy against Hungary.
More than three decades later Morocco were the next team from the continent to qualify in Mexico in 1970 after Fifa set aside a place for one African team. They were not disgraced, scaring eventual bronze medallists West Germany in a 2-1 defeat, losing 3-0 against Peru and drawing 1-1 with Bulgaria. In 1986, again in Mexico, Morocco beat Portugal 3-1 in the group stage to become Africa’s first team in the second round. There West Germany, again — who were the eventual finalists in 1986 — battled to a 1-0 win against the Lions.
Morocco made first round exits in the 1994, 1998 and 2018 World Cups. Their continued failure to win the Nations Cup inspired the launch of a national training centre by King Mohammed IV in 2009 that carried his name in Salé, near Rabat. Renowned Fédération Royale Marocaine de Football (FRMF) president Fouzi Lekjaa, since his election in 2014, has overseen a major infrastructural overhaul. In 2019 Morocco inaugurated a renovated Mohammed VI Football Complex costing $60m (R1.08bn).
In the 2000s Wydad Athletic of Casablanca re-emerged as a force and perhaps the second-strongest club in Africa after Egypt’s Al Ahly, winning the 2017 Caf Champions League. Four Moroccan clubs reached the semifinals of the 2021-22 Champions League and Confederation Cup, and Wydad and RS Berkane won them. Scarily for SA football, which hopes to see its clubs’ improvement in continental football transfer to Bafana, most of Morocco’s national players are foreign-based.
At Russia 2018 all five African teams exited in the group stage of the World Cup. In Qatar, 2021 Nations Cup champions Senegal and Morocco — if the Atlas Lions play to their potential in desert, Middle Eastern conditions that might suit them — seem the best hopes.
Paris St-Germain’s superstar right wingback Achraf Hakimi is by rights the man to lead Morocco to a good World Cup. Unlike Ziyech, the 23-year-old does not have problems with consistency. Handed a debut at Real Madrid by Zinedine Zidane at 18 in 2017, the flying fullback set a Bundesliga speed record on a two-year loan at Borussia Dortmund of 36.2kph and was African Youth Player of the Year in 2018 and 2019.
But if Morocco can take both an in-form Hakimi and Ziyech to Qatar, the Lions, also boasting a squad of all-round quality, could be a good bet to get past a Group F containing classy Belgium, Croatia and Canada. Then who knows how far they might go.
In August the FRMF fired Halilhodžić, who in February steered the Lions to an extra-time defeat to Egypt in the semifinals of the Covid-19-delayed 2021 Nations Cup — without Ziyech. The Bosnian lost his job over disagreements on how to prepare Morocco for Qatar. Lions midfield legend Walid Regragui, 47, took over, quickly recalled Ziyech, and in the September Fifa date oversaw a 2-0 win against Chile and 0-0 draw against Paraguay, both in Spain, with the Chelsea player on the right wing.
African teams with a young, emerging generation of local-brewed coaches such as Senegal’s Aliou Cissé and Algeria’s Djamel Belmadi have been achieving success, often because those coaches understand their national teams’ more temperamental players. Morocco will hope for such a result from Regragui, Ziyech, Hakimi and their other stars in Qatar.
Morocco kick off Group F against Croatia at the 60,000-seater Al Bayt Stadium in Al-Khor on November 23.
* The 2022 Fifa World Cup kicks off on November 20 and the final is on December 18. TimesLIVE and TimesLIVE Premium will profile all eight groups, the tournament favourites, star players and five African teams over the coming weeks.
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