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French coach Patrice Carteron’s third game as Wydad Athletic Club manager didn’t go as expected, as the Casablanca giant failed to secure a win since its stunning 4-3 comeback against Union Touarga Sport more than a month ago.
Wydad’s 0-1 loss to Maghreb de Fes, one of its rivals in the tight race for this season’s Botola title or the top tier in Morocco’s football league system, deepened the feeling of panic among the club’s fans, with some influencers already proclaiming that Wydad will fail once again to win a trophy for the fourth season in a row.
Botola is only halfway through, and WAC is in the fourth position with only 1 point difference from the leader.
So, why is there so much pessimism among Wydad fans? Is the team’s perceived “crisis’’ real or exaggerated?
Falling from Grace
From 2015 to 2023, Wydad fans witnessed a golden era in which the team won five Botola titles, two CAF Champions Leagues, and one CAF Super League, in addition to playing two Champions League finals. That era also saw Wydad seriously competing for the Botola trophy during the seasons in which other teams were crowned.
Wydad’s failure to bounce back after the club’s rapid collapse continues to haunt large numbers of the team’s fans in Morocco and abroad, especially following the arrest of its former president, Said Naciri, in 2023 in relation to a drug trafficking case known as the “Escobar of the Sahara.”
While Naciri’s managing style was contested by many, with critics pointing to his neglecting the club’s academy and Wydad’s poor social media presence compared to its arch-rival Raja Athletic Club, in addition to the under-marketing of Wydad’s brand, there has been a consensus among many that the former club chief was the most successful in the team’s history when it comes to trophies.
One of Naciri’s greatest strengths was his ability to take bold decisions whenever the team seemed to reach an impasse. He never hesitated in sacking coaches and bringing in managers with a proven track record. No wonder that Wydad’s titles during his tenure were achieved thanks to prominent local and foreign coaches such as former Real Madrid manager John Toshack, veteran Tunisian coach Faouzi Benzarti, and Moroccan coaches Houcine Ammouta and Walid Regragui.
For any president who was going to fill Naciri’s shoes, matching or surpassing his record was undeniably very challenging, let alone failing to achieve even a fraction of it.
Unrealistic Expectations?
When Hicham Ait Menna was elected as WAC president two years ago, hopes were high that the club wouldn’t take long to take center stage again both locally and on the continental level, in addition to fixing all the gaps from the Naciri era, with better marketing of the club’s brand, more investment in producing talent from Wydad’s academy instead of almost exclusively relying on bringing players from elsewhere.
However, things weren’t that easy. While there has been significant improvement in areas not related to how the team performs on the pitch, regaining Wydad’s former glory as a champion and a serious contender to win trophies is still elusive.
One of the reasons for such a failure seems to be the lack of stability in terms of keeping a homogeneous group of players for a longer period of time.
Instead, dozens of players have come and gone during the summer and winter transfer windows in the last two years. As a result, from Wydad’s line-up in the last game of the previous season, only four players were present during the face-off with MAS over the weekend.
Such unhealthy activity in Wydad’s transfer market, despite recruiting rising and former big stars such as Hakim Ziyech, Nordin Amrabat, Wissem Ben Yeder, and Moises Paniagua, put the club in a difficult spot, with so much money spent without indication that such a gamble will pay off in terms of winning titles.
Who is to Blame?
Since Wydad lost to AS FAR on home soil in Mohammed V Stadium in early March, the club has been in limbo. Pressure mounted on former coach Mohamed Amine Benhachem to step down. Critics have argued that the manager, whose resumé lacks trophies, was only a mid-table coach who was not fit to lead Wydad.
However, when WAC was eliminated from the CAF Confederation Cup quarter final against Olympic Safi, it was mainly because of a combination of grave errors by Wydad’s two goalkeepers, Mehdi Benabid and Abdelali Mhamedi, and the team’s biggest star Ziyech.
When Benhachem was sacked, opinions diverged. Some blasted the club’s decision makers for not shielding the coach against the perceived campaign that targeted him, adding that his overall results with the team were highly positive. Others criticized the president, arguing that the coach’s dismissal should have taken place after the defeat against AS FAR and not weeks later.
Now that Benhachem’s successor is struggling to put Wydad on the right track, despite Carteron’s impressive resumé and long experience managing Africa’s biggest clubs, criticism is flying in every direction.
The president, the coach, the players, and the sporting director have all come under fire. With every setback, panic mode is turned on, and pressure mounts. Of the first 5 teams in the table, Wydad seems the most fragile, with the fans increasingly losing confidence in their squad, even though there are still 15 games left before the season is over. All these aren’t good signs for the future.
It’s hard to conclude whether Wydad’s perceived crisis is real or imaginary. It’s also hard to assign the blame solely to this or that side.
Those who care about the club probably must indulge in self-criticism and ask themselves some serious questions: Is everybody (the fans, the president, and the pro-WAC journalists) rushing things for the return of that glorious era, while the true foundations for a team that can compete with Africa’s finest have not been laid out yet?
What and how long will it take to build such a team? What mistakes were committed in the post-Naciri era, and how can they be avoided in the future?
Meanwhile, despite the recent setbacks, Wydad more than ever needs its faithful fanbase to continue to be on the team’s side no matter what. Not just Wydadis, but Moroccan football in general can’t afford a collapse of one of its giants.
