David Astill celebrates Morocco’s sensational World Cup run in Australia and puts forward the belief that their inspirational squad could be just the start of big things for the women’s game in the North African country (10/8/23).
Above: Morocco celebrate their win over Colombia that put them into the last 16 of the World Cup. Photo: FIFA Women’s World Cup Twitter.
Morocco now has two hugely inspiring national football teams. To their men’s team’s historic run to the World Cup semi-finals in Qatar last year, add the achievements of their women over the past few weeks in Australia who have shown that they too are a force to be reckoned with on the world stage.
The women’s team have had a lot more to fight for, with Morocco being an Arab country in which gender stereotypes, whilst fading in a number of areas, are still present, and the idea of women and girls playing football is still an uncomfortable one to some around the country.
Increase in support and interest
The Atlas Lionesses’ quest to gain respect and recognition has been supported avidly by a number of high-ranking people, including from the very top, with King Mohammed VI himself investing a lot of money in recent years into the development of both the men’s and the women’s games.
This has not been a spur-of-the-moment thing though, with plans to grow men’s and women’s football in Morocco budding well over a decade ago. In 2009, the King opened a new academy outside the city of Salé, just north of the capital Rabat, with the aim of producing young male and female players who could lead the next generation in helping to reshape and rekindle the Moroccan game and to transform the country into a world power in the sport.
In 2019, the King was once again front and centre as he opened a new training complex, again near the capital, which was to be used by both the men’s and women’s senior and junior teams, once again indicating the inclusivity that has been central to every stage of Morocco’s planning over the last decade.
In 2020, it was the turn of the domestic women’s league to receive some attention, with a deal agreed for the division to become professional and for junior competitions to be devised specifically for girls. Hark back to years and years ago, and this would have been unheard of, yet Morocco want to show that they have a modern outlook when it comes to the role of their female citizens in their sporting culture.
The hard work that has gone into giving female players of all ages opportunities to play has not gone unnoticed, with forward Rosella Ayane of Tottenham Hotspur stating that the facilities that they have had access to have allowed them to prepare for major tournaments in the best way possible because they have been able to train on high-quality pitches, be kept in the right place nutritionally and have been able to enjoy a positive environment in which they are given the respect and attention that so many other sides would love to have from their own federations.
At the World Cup
When looking at their performances at the World Cup, that training and preparation time has really come to fruition, with the Atlas Lionesses looking organised and balanced and each player knowing their roles and what was expected of them.
They did need some time to settle in, with the first game at Germany showing some defensive deficiencies that needed sorting out, but that was only natural given that it was their first game at this level and they were up against one of the traditional powerhouses of the women’s game.
However, even in that match, there were signs of what was to come, with the defensive line at times working together well to cover each other and enable a press of sorts, whilst there was a nice balance to their midfield play and indications of the threat that they posed if allowed to get behind their opponents.
There were little tweaks made here and there to the starting lineup in order to fix anything that did let them down, but head coach Reynald Pedros clearly wanted to maintain that balance and not disrupt what was already there, so his lineups rarely altered drastically from match to match. That allowed partnerships to develop and players to grow into the tournament, with Ayane, Élodie Nakkach, Fatima Tagnaout, and Anissa Lahmari just some of those who stood out during their time in Australia.
Pedros had said before the tournament that he would be talking to his counterpart with the men’s team, Walid Regragui, before travelling to Australia to get some advice on what they did so well and how he could assist his players in dealing with the nerves that would come from their first World Cup appearance. Whatever advice he received undoubtedly helped.
Looking to the future
Whilst the women’s team’s World Cup journey came to an end in the round of 16 earlier this week, when they were comfortably beaten by France, they have by no means disgraced themselves. In fact, it is quite the opposite, with them joining the men’s team in getting further than anyone thought they could and showing the world that Moroccan football is growing at a rapid incline.
The hope is that their performances, coupled with the vast amount of investment that has gone into bringing the game to all levels of society, will enable everyone to get on board with the sport and to welcome each other to it, with attitudes towards gender changing by the day in Morocco, as many have noted.
Morocco hosted last year’s Women’s African Cup of Nations and ended up finishing as runners-up, and they will be hoping to go one further next year when they once again become the centre of the women’s game in Africa. However, they are not only satisfied with hosting continental tournaments and have ambitions of bringing the world to their shores, with them submitting a joint bid to FIFA to host the men’s World Cup in 2030 alongside Spain and Portugal.
It might take a little longer for them to bid for the women’s tournament, but the way things are going, an attempt to bring it to North Africa is not beyond the realms of possibility. The Atlas Lionesses need to take a lot of credit for that even being possible though, because they have proven to the world that Morocco is a nation to watch when it comes to the global development of women’s football.
The fact that there have been so many positive stories coming out of their tournament, such as Nouhaila Benzina becoming the first hijab-wearing player to feature at it, means that more and more people now have role models to look up to, and it is going to be really interesting to see where the women’s game in Morocco goes from here.
David Astill is a freelance journalist guest-writing for Impetus during the World Cup.
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