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Morocco World News
New York, September 11, 2012
The defeat of the Moroccan national football team in Mozambique is igniting a heated debate over who gets the blame for the deterioration of Moroccan football in recent years. On Tuesday, Moroccan media unanimously called the Moroccan Football Federation to dismiss the national team’s coach, Belgian national, Eric Gerets who is Oft-cited as the leading cause of the team’s decay.
Leading sport newspaper Al-Mountakhab called the defeat against Mozambique a “disgrace,” and added that the Moroccan people are asking Gerets to leave.
It went on to say that, immediately after this poor performance, the Moroccan community living in Mozambique called for the dismissal of Gerets and his replacement by the Moroccan coach Badou Zaki, who is the only coach more than 30 years to lead Morocco to the final of the African Cup of Nations in 2004 in Tunisia.
French-speaking daily Le Matin noted that “it is difficult to find extenuating circumstances for the national coach, Eric Gerets, who burned his last card Sunday after the defeat of the Atlas Lions against Mozambique.”
It went on to say that a decision concerning the future of the Belgian coach with the Moroccan team is due to be made within the next 24 hours.
Concurring views were relayed by other dailies such as Al Massae, Akhbar Al Youm and Assabah, pressing for the immediate dismissal of Gerets from his position.
It is worthy to note that, since he took over as the coach of the national team A, the “Atlas Lions” played 19 games; they lost eight games (Algeria, Senegal, Guinea, Gabon, Tunisia, Ouganda, Cameroun, Mozambique), won 6 games (Niger twice, Algeria, Tanzania twice, and Senegal) and draw in five games (Northern Island, Central Africa twice, Gambia, Ivory Coast).
After two years of leading the Moroccan team, Eric Gerets’ mismanagement has culminated in an ill-formed national team yielding negative scores and bearing a negative connotation on Morocco’s sports reputation.
Reporting from Morocco by Larbi Arbaoui and Omar Bihmidine
