By Soufiane Choubani
By Soufiane Choubani
Morocco World News
New York, January 28, 2012
I’d like to start off by addressing the national team coach, Eric Gerets.
Like I mentioned a thousand times before, No-non Moroccan coach is going to have the drive that we need to win. Logically thinking, why would any man fight his hardest to win anything for a nation that just bought him for two years. A man who is the same nationality as the national team he is coaching would clearly be more effective than a foreign coach.
Eric Gerets was not fit to take our nation to the tournament. He has no experience in major national team tournaments, nor does he even have experience in the African Continent. Looking back at him during the first game and the second game, there was a huge difference in his attitude. When we were down by a goal to Tunisia, he sat there quiet and not doing anything as our players were being slaughtered on the field. After the first game, he stated (on fifa.com) that our players “played with too much heart and not enough head”. I for one did not see any heart or head in the players or the coach.
At the second game which made me even regret watching the game, the coach seemed like he was the one with too much heart and not enough head. He spent about a total of 25 minutes complaining to the referees about fouls which were not called. Maybe the coach needs a wake up call and needs to be reminded that this is African football and internationally African Football has a reputation for being the most aggressive.
He also looked very emotional at times, which is something we had never witnessed from him before. I think he knew that his course was coming to an end, and his 4 to 0 defeat to Algeria would not be enough to secure him in his California, Casablanca Villa which was of course given to him along with his ridiculous salary.
I was happy to see that the coach did not decide to play Chamakh during the second game, but why was Chamakh given 70 minutes to make a fool of himself and our nation. He should have been pulled out much sooner and replaced with a much more driven Haji.
Most of the players chosen by the coach to start the match were all new faces to the national team roster. Why are new players with no experience being called up to start during the African Cup of Nations? Ten of the players on the team have less than 10 caps. Most players are just playing for their own self-benefit and hope to be recognized and perhaps sold to a richer club.
Kadouri and Kantari should have been called off the pitch as they did not seem to care much about the match. Perhaps they were daydreaming or thinking if they could get an earlier flight home, since they were officially out of the second round once again.
The defense was as always a nightmare. I and about 35 million Moroccans around the world are just frustrated. Moroccans now are even turning off their televisions whenever they see or hear anything about this dreadful team.
Haji played very well and had many great opportunities, but was not enough to score a goal. The goalkeeper had a great first half but the determined Gabon players proved to be just too powerful to block everything that came at him. Three goals went in and one was actually given to a Gabon striker by a Moroccan defender, which is not the first time in the history of Morocco.
The motivation was lost by the Moroccans in the second half and all of us hopeless supporters couldn’t do anything but just sit back and take it all in as this was the second embarrassment in a row. This is actually Morocco’s fourth loss in a row with two having been home losses in Marrakech.
The country should just ban the game of football for the national team until our country’s literacy rate goes up more than 50 percent and not waste millions of dollars on a sport that brings us nothing in return except tears. However, I am sure the coach will be replaced and more money will be wasted on the “once upon a time ago but not anymore” Atlas Lions of Morocco.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Morocco World News’ editorial policy.
© Morocco World News
