By Tarik Elbarakah
Morocco World News
Rabat, February 2, 2013
The Moroccan team manager Rachid Taoussi held a press conference on Saturday in one of Casablanca’s hotels to give an evaluation of the national team’s participation in the African Cup of Nations 2013 in which the Moroccans weren’t capable of exceeding the first round.
Taoussi, who was accompanied by Karim Alem, the head of the Moroccan delegation to the tournament, said that “luck stood against his will and deprived his selection from qualifying to the quarter-finals.”
The manager defended the technical choices he adopted during the three matches and said that he was trying to establish a new identity to the national team and change the players’ mentalities, since some of them used to consider joining the national team as a sort of vacation from the highly intense leagues where they play.
The former manager of several Moroccan local teams said also that he was “successful” in creating coherence between the players performing in different international leagues and put them to play together and strive for the same goal.
Concerning the case of Hussien Kharja and some rumors that pointed out that the he did not call up the former captain because of external pressures, especially from members of the Moroccan football federation, Taoussi said that all his choices are made by himself and that he is the only one who has the power to make those decisions “without any interference from any side.”
For his part, the head of the Moroccan delegation to South Africa, Karim Alem, revealed the financial expenses of the National team during its stay in South Africa. According to Mr. Alem, the expenses reached approximately six hundred thousand euros, half of which was a donation from the Confederation of African Football (CAF).
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