Sorry Ziyech, Mazraoui: Halilhodzic Was Never the Coach Morocco Needs

Washington DC – As Morocco prepared for this year’s Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), I was waiting with bated breath for the release of players who would represent the Moroccan national team. Like the large majority of Moroccans who live and breathe football and bleed the national team’s colors, I had very high expectations for the team in the ongoing AFCON.

Above all, I was expecting a solution to the long simmering dispute between players like Hakim Ziyech and Noussair Mazraoui and national coach Vahid Halilohdzic

Despite reports that Halilhodzic and these two players did not see eye to eye, that the Franco-Bosnian coach was determined not to select them unless they bowed down to his rigid disciplinary code, I hoped that wisdom and the interest of a talented group in search of a much-needed trophy or morale-boosting continental performances would ultimately prevail.

I prayed that the national team’s interests would supersede over all other considerations and narrow personal and selfish considerations. As report after report suggested that Halilhodzic was adamant about not selecting Mazraoui and Ziyech, I clung to the hope that Morocco’s Royal Football Federation (FRMF), who pays the coach, would somehow intervene and convince him to reconsider his decision, or at least establish a temporary bridge between the two players — because the team needed them — and their erratic coach.

Despite their remarkable performances with their clubs — Chelsea for Ziyech and Ajax for Mazraoui — and offering much better and higher performances compared to some of the players on Halilhodzic’s final list for the AFCON, none of the two players was invited.

The FRMF, in my opinion, had failed all Moroccans and these players. It is true that the FRMF should not interfere with the coach and should allow him to work freely.

But when it comes to a notoriously bad-tempered and toxically erratic coach, it’s the federation’s job to sometimes intervene to make sure that the coach’s antics do not fail the national team.

Morocco’s Bosnian coach was so selfish that he put himself first, even if it meant putting down the national team and the feelings of Moroccans who wanted to see his squad win this AFCON.

At the height of Ziyechgate and Mazraouigate, the FRMF should have acted to put a halt to Halilhodzic’s dictatorial behavior towards the Moroccan national team’s players.

But in the end, Moroccans grudgingly accepted that these players would not be able to compete in either the World Cup qualifying matches or the ongoing AFCON. The two players recently issued statements in which they attempted to de-escalate tensions and explained their side of the story of their fallout with Hallilhodzic. We must not exaggerate and claim that we have a strong team since we were spotless in the first round of Africa’s World Cup qualifiers.

Despite winning all its games in those qualifiers, Morocco’s team ultimately failed to impress. Even as the Moroccan Atlas Lions played all their qualifier games at home, the only match in which Halilhodzic’s team really impressed was the first leg against Guinea.

And while the results back then were at least cautiously reassuring, everyone could see that the Moroccan team lacked creativity on the left flank and assist-making incisiveness in the midfield. In other words, Mazroui and Ziyech were undroppable players in a Moroccan team that badly needed — as we saw in the defeat against Egypt — a difference-making attacking midfield and a more reassuring left-back.

So the exclusion of players who could have added extra value to the national team was reprehensible. But even more frustrating for many fans was the sight of the FRMF and the Moroccan sports press turning a blind eye to Halilhodzich’s stubbornness and toxic intransigence. And scenes like that do not send an encouraging message to all overseas Moroccans who may want to play with the Atlas Lions in the future.

The FRMF’s success was in question the moment it showed its ingratitude and dismissiveness to two players who suffered and withstood the immense pressure they were subjected when they chose to play for Morocco instead of the Dutch national team.

Unlike many other foreign-born Moroccan players, Ziyech did not make Morocco his second choice because he was not called upon by the Dutch team. Rather, both he and Mazroui decided to play for Morocco even though they could be starters with the Dutch team.

No one can deny that both players made some mistakes in dealing with the national coach, but who hasn’t and never will in his or her life? Even if we accept that they ignored some of Halilhodzic’s rules, did they commit an act of unforgivable treason for which they must pay such a high price and be expelled from the national squad in this way? Is there no room for forgiveness and page-turning in the interest of the public good?

What message does Morocco send to future generations, and how will it persuade them that their country of origin will treat them better? Look at how the FRMF allowed a short-tempered, rude, and provocative coach to mess with the national team, treating it as his plaything and the players as if they were farm workers.

Many Moroccan players abroad will decline any offer to represent Morocco due to the FRMF officials’ ingratitude toward players like Ziyech and Mazraoui.

Before opting to play for Morocco, many of the future Ziyechs and Mazraouis will dwell on the way the FRMF allowed a famously ill-tempered coach to overlook world-class players who gave their all to represent Morocco while rewarding those who represented other foreign squads.

This was evidenced yesterday in the case of Munir El Haddadi. When he was at his peak and expected to have a bright future in Europe’s elite clubs, he refused to represent Morocco and preferred instead to play for Spain. But after losing any chance of playing with Spain, El Haddadi grew desperate to represent Morocco.

Ayman Barkok had similarly turned down calls from Morocco’s national squad, hoping to play for Germany. He only chose to play with the Atlas Lions when he realized that a second- or third-class player was unfit to represent the German team.

Barkok, one of Halilhodzic’s spoilt players, has failed to perform at the required level in all of his games thus far. The existence of a player who lacks competitiveness and does not have the level required to play officially with the national team is a key reason why Morocco’s midfield is not creative or incisive enough when it comes to difference-making balls.

We give a second chance to those who declined Morocco’s calls at their peak, while dismissing those who relentlessly expressed their love for the country at their absolute peak — on the ground that they made “intolerable mistakes” and did not deal well with a self-defeatingly stubborn and irascible coach.

Is it in this way that we reward people who love Morocco and do not hesitate to defend it, even though they were born elsewhere and Morocco played little or no role during their formative years as footballers? Is this how we will persuade potential youngsters in Spain, particularly those in Barcelona’s younger age groups, such as Ilyas Akhomach and Lamine Jamal, to play for Morocco’s national team after witnessing how Moroccan football officials have let down renowned players who love their homeland?

Didn’t they think that incomprehensibly ignoring players like Ziyech and Mazraoui would force Abdessamad Ezzalzouli, a talented and great player, to withdraw from representing Morocco and give in to the pressure of the Spanish Football Federation? Ezzalzouli is a world-class player, and I hope he chooses to play for the Moroccan national team in the future, where he will be a source of pride for us and an example for all Moroccans.

I was very excited to see the national team compete in the African Cup, and I was hoping that they would win this competition and bring joy to the Moroccan people who had experienced disappointment and sadness in many previous continental and international competitions, most recently the Arab Cup.

But a coach like Halilhodzic, who appears to value his own person over the team’s interests, is not what Morocco needed to reach its top two goals: win the AFCON after four decades of disappointments and do fairly well at the World Cup.

Halilhodzic did not even have the decency to attend the traditional post-match conference after his tactics failed Morocco against Egypt.

Regardless of their team’s result in a game, club and national team managers are expected to attend their post-match conference to explain to journalists– but mostly to passionate fans who might be watching or listening — what worked and what did not work in that particular game.

Moroccans had so many questions after yesterday’s debacle: Why replace Boufal that early when he was Morocco’s most creative attacking player? Why start with Barkok and El Haddadi? Why did the coach not tell his players to continue with technical and possession football despite scoring early? Why did Morocco choose to play defensive football for much of the game, and only woke up when the match was already slipping away from them?

But Halilhozdic did not even have the courage to attend the post-match conference to at least apologize or try to defend his tactical choices or footballing philosophy despite the loss. For that alone, he must go.

And to those who may think I’m exaggerating or getting too emotional, I say that yesterday’s game and Halilhodzic’s dismissive attitude following a defeat when he should have reassured and apologized to devastated Moroccan fans show that he is not the coach Morocco needs.

Samir Bennis is the co-founder of Morocco World News. You can follow him on Twitter @SamirBennis.