Rabat – The Royal Moroccan Football Federation (FRMF) announced on Saturday that Vahid Halilhodzic, the coach of Morocco’s national team, has summoned two players to join the Atlas Lions squad’s training camp ahead of the match against Liberia.
The two players who were called upon are Wydad Casablanca’s defender Achraf Dari and midfielder Yahya Jabrane.
The Atlas Lions’s match against Liberia is scheduled for Monday at the Mohammed V sports complex in Casablanca at 8:00 p.m. local time.
The game is part of the qualification rounds for the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), which will take place in Ivory Coast.
Morocco was placed in Group K during the 2023 AFCON qualifiers draw, alongside South Africa, Liberia, and Zimbabwe.
However, the FIFA council suspended the Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) in February due to the Zimbabwean government’s interference in the federation’s activities.
With only three teams now making up Group K, the Moroccan team started the qualifiers with a 2-1 victory against South Africa in Rabat last Thursday.
Unconvincing Atlas Lions need change
Despite the victory, Atlas Lions’s captain Romain Saiss appeared unsatisfied with the overall performance of the team.
In an interview he gave at the end of the game, Saiss acknowledged that there are “things to do, and tactics progress to be made.”
“Tactically, we have to make progress, if we don’t want to take beatings at the World Cup,” the former Wolverhampton player said, emphasizing that with the end of the season “there is a lot of fatigue, injuries… But I think there is a minimum to do, because we took 3-0 against the US, and tonight again we were not realistic.”
Meanwhile, coach Halilhodzic also conceded that there are shortcomings at the team, and noted that “the players were combative, but the efficiency was not there.”
As Halilhodzic promises to address some of his team’s issues in the coming games, however, there have been reports this week that the Moroccan federation is considering parting ways with the Franco-bosnian coach.
The Atlas Lions coach boldly survived Moroccan football fans’ unrelenting “Vahid out” or “sack Halilhodzic” campaign that followed Morocco’s disappointing exit from the 2022 AFCON.
But Morocco’s 3-0 defeat to the US in a recent friendly appears to have revived long-standing suspicions that the Franco-Bosnian manager is not the right man for the coaching job as Morocco prepares to take part in the upcoming World Cup in Qatar.
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