DUBAI: Morocco is standing nervously on the brink of a historic double football success. Next week, Herve Renard’s national team face Ivory Coast aiming to end two decades hurt and qualify for a first World Cup since 1998.
First up this Sunday, however, Wydad Casablanca are out to end their own hoodoo and claim a second CAF Champions League trophy.
It has been 25 years since the fabled Wydad team, led by defender Nourredine Naybet — later of Deportivo La Coruna and Tottenham fame, beat Sudan’s Al-Hilal to lift a first continental crown.
Many hoped it would represent the start of a dynasty, but it was instead a false dawn.
Wydad fans watched on in dismay as Raja Casablanca twice won the CAF Champions League in the years that followed — their city rivals dominating at home and abroad in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Now the stage is set for Wydad to return to the spotlight: To be the cream of Casablanca once again.
“Even the fans who weren’t born 25 years ago talk about the 1992 win,” Moroccan journalist Amine El-Amri told Arab News.
“People remember those players. Naybet had perhaps the best career of any Moroccan player and as well as being a legend in his own right, he is part of the club’s legend. Now these Wydad players have a great chance to write a new piece of history.”
Wydad are just one game from glory but the imposing specter of Egyptian heavyweights Al-Ahly — a record eight-time CAF Champions League winners — still stand in their way.
A 1-1 first-leg draw in Alexandria was an encouraging result, especially as Al-Ahly had just six days earlier obliterated Tunisia’s Étoile du Sahel there, winning 6-2 in the semifinal second-leg.
It was a last-four annihilation of their own last year that set Wydad on this path to the final.
The 4-0 humbling by Zamalek spelled the end of ex-Real Madrid boss John Toshack’s reign and ushered in a new era under current coach Hussein Amotta, for whom defensive stability has been paramount.
The Moroccan’s playing career may have been prosaic but as a manager he has flourished, leading unfancied FUS Rabat to the CAF Confederation Cup in 2010 and winning the 2012-13 Qatar Stars League title with Al-Sadd. Now he is on the cusp of becoming the first Moroccan coach to win Africa’s biggest club prize.
“Amotta is very rigorous and has this reputation in Morocco of being a very serious coach,” El-Amri explained. “All of his plans start at the back; he picks the defense first and he is tactically intelligent, playing a catenaccio style of football — it’s always kept tight.”
At the heart of his back-line is Youssef Rabah, who played for Wydad in their 2011 CAF Champions League final defeat to Esperance and has been a colossus in both domestic and continental competition. Further up the pitch, captain Brahim Nekkach is often overlooked but does the dirty work in midfield to allow the likes of Salaheddine Saidi and Achraf Bencharki to express themselves creatively. Wydad were hurt by the departure of last season’s top scorer William Jebor to Saudi side Al-Nassr in the summer, but 23-year-old Bencharki has done his best to ease the pain, scoring twice in the semifinals before grabbing the crucial away goal in Alexandria.
Wydad fans are hoping he has saved his most important intervention for this Sunday, when Al-Ahly are welcomed to the 67,000-capacity Stade Mohamed V in Casablanca. The Egyptians have, however,
been in this position twice before; in both 2006 and 2012 Al-Ahly recovered from drawing the first-leg of the final at home to take home the trophy. “Of course we know Ahly are an African giant,” El-Amri said. “It’s in their DNA to win and they are on a different level compared to all the other clubs in Africa. I think there is this X-factor for Wydad, though, which is the crowd in Casablanca. It makes such a difference that they are at home, the fans will be incredible.
“This match is not just for Wydad. There is a huge sentiment of national pride when a club plays for a continental title and I know that many Raja fans will attend the final because they are supporting Morocco. It is a big moment.”
There is no question this is a real tipping point for Morocco. Interestingly the referee for this Sunday’s CAF Champions League final, Bakary Gassama, will also take charge of next week’s crunch World Cup qualifier in Abidjan.
The Gambian official may appear to hold the country’s fate in his hands but in reality it is now up to the players, of Renard’s Atlas Lions and of Amotta’s Wydad Casablanca, to take control of Morocco’s football destiny.