Morocco's Big Test In Africa's Competition

NEWS

01/08/13

Otman Affaya
Washington / Morocco Board News--     Rachid Taoussi, Morocco's footblall team coach, will be facing a big test on the African competition. I really do not know him personally but I could sense the type of coach he is and the changes did he brought to the national football team, honestly that what was needed for the team. Based on his work so far, He showed resilience, great team management skills, great motivator and articulate speaker and effective decision maker.

All these characteristics are the right ingredient for a good coach, and I would say for a good manager and a leader. He will be a great manager to Moroccan fans once he acquires the continental trophy this year.
In football as life, blogging, and reporting opinion is still a personal opinion subject to disagreements and debates. Let me explain to you the reasons why I really believe in Rachid Taoussi and his coaching stuff vision.
First, the Moroccan football is going through a lot of positive changes recently on the club level (botola competition), meanwhile the national team was struggling for a several years. Going to the African competition 2013 came thanks to the outcry of the fan and the media to get rid of Gerets era that will be remembered as one of the era we lost to teams we used to dominate in the past. The fact that the team was dominated by international players meaning any player has born overseas with Moroccan roots and the negligence of the locals players meaning the players born in morocco opened up a national debate on the selection of the right players. Mr Gerets time showed a lack of understanding a culture, their strengths and weaknesses that lead to a series of defeat. Also reflect on the mismanagement of a team and a lack of communicating his football philosophy to the team regardless of his accomplishment. Culture known for love-hate swing based on results, also mouth words and ideas spreading regardless of its authenticity.
Secondly, Once Taoussi took over, he got down to work even though he still manages a premier division club (FAR), in short period of time he managed to get the right result and qualify for CAN2013.
I am not sure the choice of his coaching stuff was his or was imposed by the federation but it was the right choice and that where the signs of a good manager appear. He brought Walid Regragui to be the connector between him and the international players due to his background, Rachid Benmhmoud to be the connector to the local and the gulf players, and Zaki brother to reinforce the goal keeping squad. All those choices are made to face and remedy any challenges that will arise during his tenure.
First challenge was to qualify to South Africa was accomplished, second challenge was to reestablish some control, discipline and respect in the locker-room, and to the national jersey was accomplished and finalized recently by leaving out all the pseudo-stars and the football divas of the team.
Thirdly, there are resemblances between football and religion in bringing the population mass together, Rachid Taoussi was not shy to exhibit his gratitude and his belief in god on the sideline and in every interview he give or goal his team score by rising his hands and thank the heaven. Emotional stability and common spirituality are major ingredients to reinforce belief, and it is great motivator if it engrained on the psychic of a team, it tend to lead the team to success.
I do give Rachid Taoussi and his coaching stuff credit of setting up the right and strict standards and requirements for a player to be representing the national team, and all of this is due to his man management skills and self -education in country where football is homeless boy wondering in cold weather begging for help.
Rachid Taoussi and his coaching stuff know what is ahead of them in the coming competition, but to me they are already on the right path to success because I trust their selection of players since is a balance of international and local players, and was given to the one that earned it, this will hopefully bring the right chemistry to a promising team. They need to keep their heads up and focus mentally, and play smart during this tournament.
I am very confident that this team is going for a better run to reach its peak on this continental competition. Since luck play a major role in football, Good luck, and we will be watching closely.

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Comments (9)  

 

+3 #1 RE: Morocco's Big Test In Africa's Competition — Mohammed Qnitri 2013-01-08 15:35

Let me break it to you but don't hate me.

Taoussi played one match and qualified to CAN. He played against Mozambique who is 112 in the fifa ranking as of December 2012.

I watched Morocco played Zambia today and they simply sucked, the players are mostly those who played for Geret:

Lamyaghri , Benatia, El Kaoutari, Hermach, El Ahmadi, Belhanda, Amrabat, Assaidi, El Arabi, Berrada.....


You lost me when you brought religion to the mix. I am sure that many believe that Allah or Satan has something to do with their bad performance, but common sens tells me that we simply do not have players that are good enough, we also now see that African players are not what they used to be, we used to beat them with out worst players, and the real proof is that almost ALL our Botola teams have African players in their lineups and they get paid more than the Moroccan players.

I encourage everyone to watch this 5 min piece on how Barcelona forms it players, I saw it on 60 min.

cbsnews.com/.../...


The FRMF need to fires itself and perhaps the king should fire them, he has a say on everything and start from zero.

In 5-6 years we can form the team of the future. Right now we are simply wasting time and money.

Some people think that bringing local players will solve the problem, those speak from the heart not from their brain, we just don't have players that are in the caliber to compete.

Here is my prognostic for CAN.

Loss to south Africa and Angola and beat or tie cape verde and go home.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

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0 #2 Replay — AffayaO 2013-01-09 03:47

Dear Qnitri,
I really do not hate anybody, as I said before everyone entitle to their opinion. I do agree with you on yesterday friendly game against Zambia. I was also really disappointed not to see more control of the tempo, more possession, and some goals. Unfortunately it did not happen. What I saw is disorganized team, trying to defend more than attack, it direct style than building from the back. Players were eager to give the ball back to the opponent, maybe lack of confidence or trust in each other’s. I really do not know. I know it was few sparks of chances in counter attack now and then we could have capitalized on that was it. I am glad that happened in friendly match to give time for the coach to address the fundamental the basics of playing football as a team. The players, that are the best that we got, we need to give them time to gel together, and believe me they do have some talent, what they need is trust and confidence, and the right guidance from Taoussi and his coaching stuff. Patience my friend that’s we need overall, I hope they will have that during the real match.

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-2 #3 Double vision — IronMaiden 2013-01-09 04:41

I totally agree with si Qnitri !
I especially like the paragraph about starting from zero.
But here is my dilema: why is it that moroccans readily understand the need for radical change to uproot diseased organizations BUT totally refuse to see the ENTIRE COUNTRY AS A DISEASED STATE ???
So here's my "prognostic" for morocco:
1- shabat gets into dirty deed with hima.
2. There is tacite support from lachgar usfp.
3. Benkirane out to opposition, new government in.
4. Al adl walihssan strikes deal behind closed doors with hima.
5. King wins. Benkirane loses, he is not credible anymore.

So. Regime 5 - PJD 1. ilimini

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+2 #4 RE: Morocco's Big Test In Africa's Competition — Qnitri 2013-01-09 16:34

Mr. AffayaO,
I like that you are positive about Taoussi and his crew, unfortunately, I just do not think that we have good enough players to do the job. If you have paid attention to the Zambia game, the players were really tired and really early.

The Zambia did not seem to have mame any effort and that will change for all teams when the competition starts.


Here why I am saying that we do not have good enough players, check out the 86 team:
Badou Zaki
Khalifa
Abdelmajid Lamriss
Mustafa El-Biyaz
Norredine Bouyahyaoui
Abdelmajid Dolmy
Mustafa El-Haddaoui
Aziz Bouderbala
Abdelkarim Krimau
Mohammed Timoumi
Mohammed Laghrissi
Abderrazak Khairi

These are caliber players, now compare them with our current ones. There is no comparison in my vue.

Moroccan players don't seem to be strong like the others, running for example, I have never seen a Moroccan player outrun an African player, no way, and we have seen how easy for African players to do that when playing Morocco.

It's not the coach, the federation needs to start forming players at home from zero instead of importing them and hoping for the best, The 60 minute clip is a must watch to see how Barcelona form players of the future and I know and everyone know that Moroccans can be much more technical than any players in the world other than the Brazilians. We do have the talent and we miss hard work. Our players right now look for a way to get rich quickly and I do not blame them, they need to look after themselves and that is why they chose to play outside Morocco to secure their lives after soccer. If Morocco were to take care of their players instead of showering millions on foreign coaches, we won't have this problem.

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0 #5 RE: Morocco's Big Test In Africa's Competition — Otto 2013-01-10 12:20

Othman,
Morocco will lose against Angola, South Africa and will go home, don't keep your hopes high, it's not worth it. Qnitri said it best, We don't have players as we used to and African players have gotten better and we never did anything about it.
When Zaki took over, 100% of his players were playing in Europe and the local players simply gave up and wanted to play outside Morocco in order to make some money and perhaps make it to the national team.

We followed Zaki's tradition and the majority of our players are born somewhere else and don't really have a real strong connection to Morocco. They go to the team to be visible and that's pretty selfish.

Thank you Zaki.

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0 #6 another blow — otto 2013-01-10 14:53

Belhanda may miss Afcon
by Tarek Talaat 10 January 2013, 19:13

Morocco head coach Rachid Taoussi is still in shock after Montpellier’s Younes Belhanda injured himself during team training In South Africa.

The Federation of Royal Moroccan Football has now announced that their player may not suit up for Afcon.

The Moroccan body published that Montpellier’s player tore a muscle in team training and will have medical test to know if he can stay with the Lions or leave the delegation for ho,e.

Belhanda injury is not the first one for the Atlas Lions, after Liverpool’s Oussama Assaidi suffered the same fate in the Moroccan camp.

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0 #7 Love for Morocco 86 — AffayaO 2013-01-11 11:04

Let me be giving you my take on the team Morocco 86, true they were the best team that we had. However, as all Moroccan I felt crashed sad to be eliminated that way it show how football could be cruel sometimes regardless of your performance and Moroccan team performed and entertained the world that night but with no result. Several events I take time to go back and watch that game, and try to figure out what went wrong that day. The Coach that time Mehdi Faria give the players the right tactic to win the game, but the players failed to attack maybe because of fatigue, a lack of believe in self and each other they did hold the ball passed it around as a team in midfield, dominated the possession but they did not dare to push and attack the German team to win the game, and of course Zaki saves. In other words to me they did not raise up to their potential because of this sense of inferiority engrained on our psychic and lack of confidence instead of reinforcing the positive and focus on constructive critics we will never move forward. Just imagine if we did beat the German that day and went to the quarterfinal our football might be in different situation or maybe not. Rise up stay realistic but make a difference. As M.L.K stated” to make progress, we need to be able to imagine alternative realities, and not just any old reality but a better one.’’ Amen.
Here is the link for that game

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0 #8 Lessons from Friendly games — AffayaO 2013-01-13 03:06

The building up of a good team is difficult; require a slow thorough work, and attention to details with keeping the eyes on the big picture, few managers achieve it; it means all the difference in the End. Furthermore, staying at the top is the most challenging task in sport field. After all we do see some improvement, players started linking together, and possession of the ball is better, dominance of the midfield is the key to win games. The coaching staff should focus on the positive things that have been done by players’ individual and collective skills on the those matches and try to take them and engrained them on the player’s habits. There is work to be done on the communication level between players, also on the transition of the ball, and set pieces (corners, free kicks…). Football is a game of mistakes, the team who makes fewer errors ends up by winning, and the focus should be on how to react and respond to those mistakes, and try to minimize them, all this should be discussed among the team. Other issues will arise later so the team should be prepared to face them. I will take any team with 70-80% readiness to any competition but I need to be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of my opponents to make the right adjustments. There is a sense of work has been done on the team, you could see the coaching staff stamps on, and that is a good sign.
www.youtube.com/.../

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0 #9 RE: Morocco's Big Test In Africa's Competition — Qnitri 2013-01-15 13:40

Dans un match de préparation, qui a eu lieu au Rand Stadium, les Lions de l’Atlas se sont contentés d’un nul 0-0, face à l’équipe sud-africaine Bidvest Wits.

Don't keep you hopes high amigos. We should have sent a Botola team instead.

I am aware that things change when the real competition starts, still, I just don't think that we are strong enough to go far in this competition.

Our only chance is if South Africa panics in front of their home crowd.

If I were Taoussi, I would let the other teams take the initiative and we play the fast contre attack the same way Tunisia beat us in the last CAN.

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