This is the World Cup of diasporas, as we’ve heard in recent weeks: 289 of the tournament’s 1,248 players are representing a country other than the one where they were born.
- The beating heart of this football diaspora is France, where 99 players were born, and only 23 of them wear the blue shirt.
- Six players born in France wear the Moroccan jersey, and since the Moroccan community is one of the largest in France, tonight’s quarterfinal at 22:00 will feel like a derby.
- Furthermore, captain Achraf Hakimi is one of Paris Saint-Germain’s leaders, and Azzedine Ounahi has played for Angers and Olympique de Marseille.
- But in the squad there is another Franco-Moroccan who has captured all the attention at this World Cup: Ayyoub Bouaddi, an 18-year-old midfielder with Lille OSC, born in Senlis, in Hauts-de-France. He has featured for every French youth team, from the U16s to the U21s (where he also wore the armband as captain).
- He joined the squad in May, and on the day of his debut in a friendly with his “new” national team, he posted on Instagram a photo of himself as a child during a Morocco match at the 2018 World Cup. In the caption, Bouaddi said he was proud to represent Morocco, but also sent “a thought for France.” He added: “I am and will always be proud of my double culture, of my journey and of my roots.”
The technical director of the French Football Federation, Hubert Fournier, spoke with a certain bitterness about Bouaddi’s “loss”: “We know that in his age group there isn’t another Bouaddi. It’s a significant loss for our federation.”
- In a recent interview with The Athletic, he also explained that it has become harder to retain dual-nationality talents in French football, partly because the competition for a place in the French team is extremely high, and partly because other national teams, like Morocco, have progressed and become attractive.
- “What has changed is that, taking the Moroccan Federation as an example, they’ve become very well structured,” he said: “They have a training center as good as Clairefontaine.”
Tonight, Morocco will be a formidable opponent for France, far more so than four years ago when the two teams met in the semi-finals. France had won 2-0.
- In 2022, Morocco reached the semi-final to everyone’s surprise. It possessed a few highly technical individuals, but the overall quality was less widespread than today. It played an extremely reactive style, defending with a low block before breaking freely into the spaces.
- With this approach, Morocco also reached the final of the last Africa Cup of Nations (lost on the field, but later awarded by a judicial decision after Senegal’s forfait) and the top 10 in the FIFA rankings.
- With the new coach, Mohamed Ouahbi, who has extensive experience with youth teams, first at Anderlecht in Belgium, then with the Moroccan under-20 team, which he led to the AFCON final in 2015, followed by the World Cup victory in the same category, Morocco is showcasing the enormous technical talent at its disposal more effectively. The team has become more spectacular and more dominant.
Morocco is therefore no longer a surprise, but a legitimate contender for the ultimate victory. That is why France should expect a very different match from the one against Paraguay, a very limited opponent that focused exclusively on destroying.
- As Guy Stéphan, Deschamps’ assistant, said: “This will be a different opponent; it will not be a low block. Morocco knows how to attack.”
- The North African side will probably not have its best forward, Ismael Saibari, available after a injury sustained against Canada.
But France, just like Morocco, is a more “beautiful” team than four years ago. The World Cup’s great novelty lies precisely in this: for the first time under Deschamps, France is not only very strong, but also succeeds in enchanting and giving the impression of enjoying playing.
- Between the group-stage matches and the round of 16, they have scored 13 goals in 4 games, conceding only 2.
- As Daniele Manusia wrote in the football magazine UltimoUomo, during these early encounters “France has moved from the status of mere favourite to that of a great favourite, perhaps even a team that has practically already won this World Cup and can only let it slip away by making a mistake.”