The Atlas Lions’ 3-0 win over Zambia brought some assurances to Moroccan football fans about this team’s ability to keep the AFCON trophy at home.
Not only Morocco’s 1-1 draw with Mali in the team’ second group stage game was alarming, but also the tendency of some players, fans and sports commentators, both local and foreign, to find all kinds of excuses for Coach Hoalid Reguragui.
Among those arguments was the constant reminder that Regragui was the person to whom Moroccans owe the impressive 2022 World Cup run, when Morocco became the first African nation to reach a semi-final in the tournament’s history.
Bringing this argument every now and then has frankly become annoying for a variety of reasons.
Benefit of the doubt
No one denies Coach Regragui’s role in Morocco’s historic World Cup achievement, and for that Moroccans will forever be indebted to him. But this can’t be a palliative to any potential AFCON failure or the justified criticism to choices that the coach has made, both in his tactics and list of players, which many people think weakened the Atlas Lions.
Moroccan football commentators and fans have for years rightly called out coach Regragui’s reliance on out-of-form players in major tournaments. This was one of the reasons the Atlas Lions did poorly in the 2024 AFCON in Ivory Coast, getting knocked out in the round of 16 against South Africa, a lesser squad on paper.
The Royal Moroccan Football Federation had every reason to sack Regragui, but instead it chose stability and renewed its confidence in him. His World Cup achievement probably played a role in this decision.
Other coaches who were managing other national Moroccan teams didn’t benefit from the same treatment even though they had a good track record. FRMF parted ways with former U-23 coach Issame Charai even though he led Morocco to winning this category’s AFCON in 2023.
It did the same with Reynald Pedros, the former Morocco’s Women team coach, even though the Frenchman led the Lionesses to an AFCON final in 2022 and the knockout stage in their first World Cup appearance the next year.
In both cases FRMF apparently saw that a change would enhance these teams’ performances by respectively appointing Moroccan former star Tarik Sektioui and Jorge Vilda, former Spain Women team manager and World Cup winner, as head coaches.
Resting on one’s laurels
Unlike Pedros and Charai, coach Regragui kept his role as Atlas Lions head coach despite the debacle in Ivory Coast and the huge amount of criticism he received from fans and commentators.
In an interview with Egyptian TV On Sport, FRMF President Fouzi Lekjae showed support for Regragui when he said: “After what happened in the 2022 World Cup, it wasn’t easy for everybody, the staff and the players, to keep their feet on the ground and get quickly involved in the AFCON atmosphere which everybody agree is different from the World Cup.”
While there might be a kernel of truth in the last part of the argument, it’s honestly difficult to agree with the first part. In many cases there were teams that benefited the most from their football momentum to win consecutive titles.
For example, Cameroon won the 2000 AFCON, gold medal in the Sydney Olympics the same year and another AFCON two years later. Spain won the 2008 Euro, 2010 World Cup and 2012 Euro.
It’s true that other Moroccan national teams seized the moment by winning U-17 and U-23 AFCONS, U-20 World Cup and CHAN. But Reguragui’s team failed to do the same.
Furthermore, what Moroccan football aficionados were angry about during 2024 AFCON was Regragui’s insisting that players such as Selim Amallah and Noussair Mazraoui participate in a knock-out stage game when they were both not in their best shape.
What’s even more infuriating was the fact that the Moroccan public had to make similar criticism in the current AFCON after captain Romain Saiss’s muscle injury early in the first game against Comoros, with people questioning whether he was really fit to be part of the final AFCON list in the first place.
While some people are sensitive to any criticism of Regragui on the basis that everybody should be united around the coach and his team to win the AFCON trophy every football-loving Moroccan has dreamt of for decades, others believe that they can’t hold their tongues when they see the coach insisting on an approach that is obviously wrong.
Were it not for the public outcry after Morocco’s draw with Mali, coach Regragui probably wouldn’t have been forced to change the starting 11 in the third group game against Zambia.
This was a clear sign that Moroccan fans are very involved in this AFCON and want the continental crown so badly. It means, above all, that anything short of winning the cup will be a huge disappointment, and nothing will be a consolation to chronically frustrated Atlas Lions fans, certainly not the fact that Morocco had a historic World Cup run three years ago.
