Morocco Overhauls National Soccer Team, Drops Key Veterans After AFCON Exit

After the early elimination of the Moroccan national team from the Africa Cup of Nations (CAN 2023), Walid Regragui did some housecleaning. The captain of the Atlas Lions, Romain Saïss, Selim Amallah, Abdessamad Ezzalzouli, Amine Harit, and Yunis Abdelhamid, Ismaël Saibari, Noussair Mazraoui, and Sofiane Boufal, injured, were not called up by the national coach for the upcoming friendly matches against Angola and Mauritania scheduled for Friday, March 22 and Tuesday, March 26 respectively at the Grand Stade d’Agadir. For the sports analyst, Hicham Ramram, the Moroccan technician is correcting the mistakes of the failed CAN.

"Two names among the nine excluded, namely Noussair Mazraoui and Sofiane Boufal, were players on whom Walid Regragui insisted on including in the Africa Cup of Nations list, even though they were injured, only to find them out of the new list, knowing that he considered them as pillars of the team even in their worst moments," he commented to the site Al3omk. The sidelining of the captain of the Moroccan national team "is a remarkable aspect," notes the sports analyst, also noting that Ezzalzouli was among the players who had benefited from all the chances a player "could wish for despite his modest performance".

After noting that Walid Regragui went to the CAN with a list of which two-thirds of the main players did not deserve to be present, Ramram notes that between the 2022 World Cup in Qatar and the 2023 CAN in Côte d’Ivoire, the Moroccan technician "changed 20 players, which is a very high number".