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Casablanca – There’s a particular kind of story football likes to tell about itself, the one where the player who shouldn’t have made it ends up defining a tournament. Ismael Saibari’s story fits that mold almost too neatly.
Before he could walk properly, doctors weren’t sure he ever would. As a toddler, Saibari was diagnosed with a severe deformity that turned both of his feet sharply inward.
For a full year, he lived strapped into heavy orthopedic braces designed to force his bone structure back into alignment, a slow, uncomfortable process with no guarantees of success. His family leaned on faith and persistence through that year.
Eventually, his legs straightened, and that was only the beginning of what he had to push through.
As a young teenager training in Europe’s academy system, Saibari was released because coaches at the time considered him overweight and unfit for the demands of the professional game.
It was the kind of rejection that ends a career before it even starts, especially at 14.
Instead, Saibari used it as the turning point. He changed his diet, rebuilt his training regimen, and transformed his body over the following years. The same physical frame that once got him cut eventually became one of his greatest assets. At 1.82 meters, his strength and physical presence are now central to how he plays the game.
The years that followed were quieter, built almost entirely in the Netherlands, where Saibari developed into one of the Eredivisie’s most reliable performers. This past season has been his best yet. He notably won Eredivisie Player of the Year off the back of a prolific campaign, the kind of form that doesn’t go unnoticed by Europe’s biggest clubs.
It also sets up the version of Saibari that arrived at the World Cup. He scored in Morocco’s opening match against Brazil, then again in the following two group games, becoming the first Moroccan player to score in three consecutive World Cup matches.
Read also: Ismael Saibari: Morocco’s In-Form Star Ready for the 2026 World Cup
But it was the round of 32 against the Netherlands, the country where he’s spent his entire club career, that turned his tournament into something bigger than a string of good performances.
The match went to penalties after a physical, draining 120 minutes that left Saibari needing treatment for a cut to his face. And he was the one who stepped up to take the winning kick when it came down to the shootout, sending Morocco through and ending the Dutch campaign earlier than anyone in Oranje colors would have wanted.
What happened next is the image that will likely outlast statistics. Saibari ran from the penalty spot straight into his mother’s arms. She was sobbing with both relief and pride, and for a moment the noise of the stadium seemed to fall away around them. For anyone who knows even the outline of his story, that embrace carried more than a single match’s weight behind it.
The business side of football, as it tends to, moved in parallel. Bayern Munich agreed a deal worth up to €55 million for Saibari mid-tournament, the largest outgoing transfer in PSV’s history, with the move set to formally be announced once Morocco’s World Cup campaign comes to an end.
It’s tempting to call Saibari’s tournament a breakout. But breakout suggests something sudden. And the fact is that the magic, difference-making confidence the world has seen from Saibari in this World Cup is hardly a surprise for those who have known the player for the past few years, who knew or understood where he began and the challenges and setbacks he has had to overcome.
Ultimately, as is often the case with greatness, Saibari’s story is the long journey of a kid who, when faced with a verdict that suggested his dream was impossible, kept walking anyway while counting on the love and sacrifices of his family.
