Rabat –Morocco’s National Futsal Team and its head coach, Hicham Dguig, have been selected for the 2021 Futsalplanet Awards.
Coach Dguig is nominated for the Best National Team Coach in the World for the Dimitri Nicolaou Award, while the Moroccan team is nominated for the Best Men’s National Team in the World award.
The Moroccan coach is competing against nine other futsal coaches worldwide.
Also featured in the list of nominees for the best men’s national team in the world are Argentina, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Iran, Japan, Kazakhstan, Portugal, Slovakia, Uzbekistan, and Venezuela.
Launched in 2000, FutsalPlanet Awards aims to honor the best international futsal players annually.
In 2020, Morocco came 6th in the best men’s national team category while Dguig ranked 10th in the best coach category.
Dguig is the first coach in the world to participate in three consecutive FIFA Futsal World Cups with the same national team.
In 2020, he extended his contract with the Royal Moroccan Football Federation (FRMF) until 2024.
The nominations come after Morocco’s impressive and historic performance in the 2021 FIFA Futsal World Cup, which took place in Lithuania from September 12 to October 3.
The Moroccan futsal team won against Solomon Islands and tied with Portugal and Thailand in the group stage before reaching the quarter-finals.
But the team’s World Cup dream was brought to an end after losing to Brazil 1-0 in a tight game.
FRMF hosted a reception in honor of the national team on September 29, 2021. During the event, Dguig called for improving futsal infrastructure in Morocco, notably by building sports halls that meet international standards and investing more in talented young players.
At the ceremony, the president of the FRMF Fouzi Lekjaa applauded the team’s accomplishment as well as the technical staff’s professionalism, and emphasized on the importance of building the players’ performance in last year’s World Cup to achieve more in future tournaments.
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