Football - Morocco: The challenges that await Mohamed Ouahbi
Trainer with proven experience, Mohamed Ouahbi who spent 14 years with the youth teams of Anderlecht and remains on a triumph at the U20 World Cup with Morocco, begins his first experience with professionals this Friday against Ecuador, in Madrid (20h15 GMT) as coach of the Atlas Lions. An immense challenge that takes on another dimension when we know that it succeeds Walid Regragui who will have put Morocco back on the world map.
Philemon MBALE · Author profile ·
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Reconstitute the defense
This is the first major challenge that awaits Mohamed Ouahbi with Morocco. Indeed, after the AFCON 2025, Romain Saïss retired and Nayef Aguerd was injured with Olympique Marseille, which forced the new coach to find a new central link, especially since Adam Massina who formed the duo with Aguerd is without a club since his departure from Bologna last February.
With Issa Diop who will probably become the boss, at least during this truce, Ouahbi and his staff will experiment a novel turn against Ecuador before re-joining or trying another association against Paraguay next Tuesday. It remains to be seen if he will trust very early the U20 world champion Ismaël Baouf to whom he gave his first call this month. With Noussair Mazraoui and Achraf Hakimi on the sides, Morocco is rather covered at this level.
Continue the positive dynamic
While trying to find a turning point, the other challenge for Mohamed Ouahbi and his staff is to maintain the positive dynamic on which Walid Regragui left Morocco. Even if the Atlas Lions were sometimes more pragmatic than romantic with the former coach, they won and advanced Morocco in international competitions.
It is therefore a real challenge for the new management team who will rely on the achievements of the former staff to continue this positive dynamic. Moreover, Mohamed Ouahbi does not want to be a revolutionary’s cap.
«As I have said several times, we are not here to make a revolution. Today, we have a World Cup in a short time. We are winners of the last AFCON, and what is important is to have continuity and clear ideas. I’m talking about play, tactics, dynamics,"
he said when announcing his list.
Management of egos
His popularity rating has soared since the coronation of Morocco at the U20 World Cup, which makes us forget that Mohamed Ouahbi is in his first professional wardrobe experience. This also remains a major issue, even central to his mandate as head of the Atlas Lions.
Faced with players who are superstars and who naturally have egos and a team that is in emotional limbo regarding the AFCON 2025, the managerial expertise of Mohamed Ouahbi will be greatly required to maintain a climate of cohesion and internal stability.
It will be too early to talk about "the Ouahbi leg" at the head of Morocco during this truce, but she will count when preparing her list for the World Cup: "The performances that will be achieved in the next two months will decide who will be at the World Cup.", suggested the 49-year-old man.
To these three major challenges, we could add others that are complementary, namely the promotion of young people, as it began so well with the selection of three U20 world champions and a gradual tactical evolution in order to stand out from the 4-3-3 from the shadow of Walid Regragui.