The situation
Morocco achieved its independence from France in 1956. It was by no means a process similar to the cruel war that was waged in Algeria, but that cry for freedom from the Maghreb people became a milestone in the country’s history. The Moroccan diaspora, with more than 1,314,000 inhabitants in France, is the second largest in all of Africa, after the Algerian, which concentrates 1,713,000 citizens on French soil . The semifinal duel between Morocco and France mixes sport, politics, geopolitics and geography. In the Atlas Lions, the first African team in history to reach the World Cup semifinals, there are several players with French roots. The first is his coach, Walid Regragui, who, although he acknowledges that he was born in France, “his heart is 100% Moroccan.” The former Racing Santander player spent most of his career as a player in the French country, coinciding in 2006 with Olivier Giroud at Grenoblewhen I was playing in the French second division. Years later, he trained as a coach in Morocco, soaked up the Atlas culture and became a hero for the national team after guiding them to the semifinals with just three months in charge. The Morocco captain, Romain Saiss, who is a doubt until the last minute for Wednesday’s game, is another of the players in the squad who has roots in France. He was born in the Drôme, in the south-east of France, he trained in French football, passing through Clermont, Le Havre, where he met the Algerian Riyad Mahrez, and later rose to Ligue 1 with Angers. Training midfielder, his great performance in the first division earned him to sign for Wolverhmapton in 2016, with which he established himself as an extraordinary central defender and the leader of a golden generation for Morocco.
The details
The third is Sofiane Boufal. The left winger of Angers, born in Paris, was called up in 2016 by the French Football Federation to go international. However, the insistence of the Moroccan coach at the time, Herve Renard, also French, days later convinced him to play for Morocco . The strong attachment that he has with his Moroccan mother, with whom he danced after the victory against Portugal in the quarterfinals, was decisive in tipping the balance in favor of Morocco. “ When I was little, I hardly had time to go from school to training sessions in Angers. My mother didn’t make it to the end of the month. I told my mother that she was going to drop out of school and that in a year and a half she would not have to go back to work. Now live like a queen”, Boufal confided in October, just before the World Cup, in an interview with Free Ligue 1. The player from the bottom of Ligue 1 is having a great World Cup, accumulating matches of a high level, which could worth to make the leap to a bigger team. He wants to be in Spain. Harit, injured in the ligament before the World Cup, but who has traveled to Qatar to support his teammates in the semifinals, is another of the players who could have played this match. In fact, the one born in Pontoise, France, was international in the lower galas.