Sam7ou lia a lkhout, ghadi njaweb beneglizia...
Look, I haven't posted on this site in ages. I've been following the news and videos all along though. I've watched football evolve from the 80s to what we watch today. Some of which is now faster, some is quite entertaining, and other leagues are for-profit corporations. When it come to our national team, it is in fact a good footballing team, but lacks certain ingrediens that could make it a competitive and winning team, well at least in the african continent. Allow me to elaborate further on that.
As a leader you can't expect more from your group members than what they can actually give you (fa9idou shay2i la yo3tih). In other words, our national team players cannot give us more than what they're actually capable of. For example, when we failed in previous African cups, it was ordinarily easier for us to blame the players for lack of motivation, which some would argue lack of patriotism instead.
Fact of the matter is when managing people, there are only two things that affect the end result. Motivation and Skill. You must have both to produce anything at all, popsicle, ipads, or football. Get the idea? Ok then.
Motivation: For a player there is no bigger motivation than playing for your national team, winning a trophy, and becoming an immortal national hero. So I just find it hard to believe that Moroccan players in particular (immigrants or not) lack on this department.
Skill: This however is where things get a bit more interesting. Skill can be categorized in case of football to three things: technical, tactical, and physical. Clearly you need the right mix, the magic recipe, in order to be a competitive winning team. Moroccan players have always been very good technically and tactically individually and as a team. Physically, however, is another story. Our players seem to be lacking substantially in the physical department compared to all other african teams including Egypt and Tunisia. Look at their body builds, speed, power, all in all look at the percentage of won challenges between our players and their opponents. That is the root cause of each of their defeats.
Essentially, we've pointed the finger at the wrong problem enough time, every time we failed one of those african cups. Everyone hails either the players were not motivated or the coach wasn't a brilliant strategist. Yet, we've changed players and coaches only to come home with the same defeated results, once more. What about Zaki? how did he succeed? well then.
Zaki's secret formula's no secret: He used to play with a strategy that allowed for a strong defense and one more man in the midfield (3-5-2) , which helped offset the physical attribute of the team where we sorely lacked. That of course made our offense little less potent, which in turn made Zaki less likable by certain offensive-minded football enthusiasts... So what am I saying here after all?
well we should pick the best players that can compete physically that is (i.e., height, weight, speed, strength, etc) make them even stronger. We certainly do not need too much technique (only basics: control, protect, and pass). Tactics on the other hand must be practiced till perfected by all units in the team, that is in fact what coaches are there for. I expect this to irk lot of people, and I just happen to know why. It's our culture, wait let me explain. Our football culture that is. Growing up playing soccer, we never valued goal keepers or defenders, have we? If you played football in Morocco as a young boy, I expect you'd relate to this statement. This means that we've fostered and enabled a culture that valued technique, dribbling, and deft feet work more. I suppose it is the very reason we currently don't have great goalies, great all-around defenders, and strong defensive midfielders. So to become champions our football clubs must value defense more and make it part of the club culture. Defense wins championships, simple as that. This is not to neglect offense of course, but we have to focus on where the defect lies. And that is defense, stating with the goalie.
Hope the message passes through all the way to Mr. Gerets, and he receives it with open mind and open heart.
My 2 cents,
Football consultant