MOROCCO are one match away from the final of the Qatar 2022 World Cup, with the prospect of adding yet another layer to their history-making at the global showpiece.
The Atlas Lions are already the first African and Arab team to reach the World Cup semi-finals, and they face France tonight with more records beckoning.
If the North Africans beat the defending champions tonight at the Al Bayt Stadium, they will become the first team in World Cup history not from Europe or South America to reach the final.
This year has seen unprecedented success for Moroccan football but it not by accident or pure luck; they have planned for it long term.
The Royal Moroccan Football Association and the government have long collaborated in building world-class structures for youth development and spent their FIFA funds (including an emergency €500,000 given to all member associations to cushion the effects of Covid-19) judiciously.
The country has state-of-the-art football academies and well-run professional clubs who are making large waves across Africa.
RMFF president Fouzi Lekjaa gives an insight into the the process that has brought the Atlas Lions to global prominence and Moroccan clubs to dominate Africa.
“We have a team overseeing development across the country’s 12 regions, starting with talent detection, with young players attending club academies,” he said in June during a FIFA Talent Development Scheme workshop in Morocco.
“That’s why we’ve made such a big effort to make sure clubs have their own academies. The regional academies are the same as the national academy, just smaller.
“The best players from the regions go to the centre of excellence, which has coaching and medical staff who work with young players spotted in grassroots football and take them up to the next level.
“That’s the way our development cycle is designed. It starts with talent detection at grassroots level, with that talent then channelling into the clubs, the regional academy and on to the national centre of excellence.”
The approach has worked wonders for Moroccan football, with everything coming together this year.
In 2022 alone, Moroccan clubs Wydad Athletic and RS Berkane won the CAF Champions League and CAF Confederation Cup trophies respectively.
They have made huge leaps in women’s football this year too, hosting and reaching the final of the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations, qualifying for their first-ever FIFA Women’s World Cup and winning the Women’s CAF Champions League title.
To Lekjaa, as the Lions fly Africa’s collective flag in Qatar tonight, it has not been a miracle; it is simple principles.
“The development of football in Morocco should be based on a three-pronged approach focusing on facilities, talent and well-qualified staff. My Federation colleagues and I are certain that these three elements must be in place to ensure proper development,” he explained.
The Moroccans have developed the talent over the years and provided the facilities for decades. They added the well-qualified staff to the mix this year with the appointment of Walid Regragui and his crew in August.
The former Morocco international led Wydad to the CAF Champions League title after cutting his football teeth in France, where he was born.
Regragui has moulded talented, resilient individuals into a unit that fights for each other. He also recalled Morocco’s best player Hakim Ziyech, who had been exiled by the previous head coach Vahid Halilhodzic.
As the Atlas Lions attempt to roar past France into a historic World Cup final tonight, they will be cheered on by the entire African continent and the Arab world.
Whatever happens tonight, Morocco have already had a successful World Cup, but the biggest lesson for the rest of Africa is that proper planning will eventually produce bountiful rewards.
