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Fédération Royale Marocaine de Football

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MOROCCO MAKES A NEW SOCCER START
WITH MANAGER ZAKI

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Morocco happy to go Dutch

 



Morocco find themselves in a tough battle with traditional rivals Tunisia as they challenge for a place at the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany™. It is as much as they would have expected when they were first drawn together in African qualifying Group 5 and it has prompted coach Badou Ezaki to cast his net far and wide for players.

Moroccans have left their country in huge numbers over the last few decades, resulting in large communities of immigrant guest workers in Belgium, France, Spain, Germany and, particularly, the Netherlands where they have made a notable impact on the local football scene.

Footballers of Moroccan descent are now commonplace at almost every club in the Dutch league with Khalid Boulahrouz, now with Hamburg in Germany, having become the first to play for the Dutch national team.

At the recent FIFA World Youth Championship on home soil, the Netherlands employed the services of PSV Eindhoven's promising Ibrahim Afellay, who has chosen to represent the country of his birth rather than that of his parents. As it was, his hopes of making an impact on the tournament were hit by an injury sustained in the opening round.

However, while Afellay chose to go Dutch, other players have thrown in their lot with the land of their forebears. The Dutch-born pair of Ali Boussabon and Khalid Sinouh have both recently made their international debuts for Morocco, and the north Africans have also been granted permission to field two former Dutch youth internationals, Said Boutahar and Mounir El Hamdaoui.

In this way, the Royal Moroccan Football Federation (FRMF) is a beneficiary of the change in the FIFA statutes allowing players who have represented one country at junior level to represent another at senior level providing they can prove their eligibility.

Henri Michel was the first Morocco coach to look beyond the national frontiers for reinforcements ahead of the 1998 FIFA World Cup finals. Ali El Khattabi became the first Dutch-born footballer to play for Morocco and featured at France 98 but his international career later came to a close when a fear of flying kept him grounded in Europe.

Meanwhile, Yassine Abdellaoui, at one stage one of the most promising players in the Dutch league, made it no further than the bench in the build-up to the 1998 finals and was left out of the squad.

Tarek Sektioui and Nourdin Boukhari were the next 'Dutchmen' to be called up in 2001 but subsequently fell out of favour, although Sektioui has been brought back into the squad by Ezaki in the past year.

Important additions
As for Boussabon and Sinouh, the newcomers could fill gaps in vital positions. Sinouh's debut was in November last year and his inclusion for four of their last five matches is an attempt to see whether he can solve Morocco's long-standing goalkeeping problem. Sinouh, who is presently out of contract at RKC Waaljwik, made his international debut shortly before his 30th birthday and said that the experience left him "with a lump in the throat".

Boussabon, meanwhile, who has just signed for Feyenoord, could be the target man that the Moroccans have long been looking for. A former Dutch U18 international, he made his debut in the Germany 2006 qualifier against Guinea in March and made an immediate impact, coming on midway through the second half and laying on the winning goal for Youssef Hadji. "It was a day never to be forgotten. You will never be able to take the experience away from me," he said.

Next on the cards is Morocco's penultimate qualifier in Group 5 against Botswana in September. But it will be in October when the qualifiers conclude that the experience of the Dutch-born contingent will be most needed with Morocco travelling to Tunisia for the group decider.

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