Moroccan Prodigy Yassine Dazzles at U20 World Cup

Gessime Yassine’s performance with the Moroccan national team at the U20 World Cup does not surprise Demba Ba, the deputy president of USL Dunkerque, the club where the Moroccan gem plays. "I’m not surprised. When I saw his eyes full of emotion when talking about his country, I was convinced that he would perform well. He has such a love for his country! He is a different player who has an uncommon technical agility with this ability to take his opponents by surprise," he confides to L’Équipe.

For Demba Ba, the 19-year-old player has exceptional qualities. "Footballistically, he has everything. He needs to strengthen athletically. He has kept his natural street football qualities and the idea is to amplify them, highlight them and integrate them into a collective framework. He has a lot of room for improvement. He’s not 20 yet, he already has 50 Ligue 2 matches, that’s already very solid," he develops. An impressive career for this player from Salon-de-Provence in the Bouches-du-Rhône, who made his debut at Istres and joined Dunkerque in early 2024.

Gessime Yassine thrives within the Atlas Lions, alongside other talents like Othmane Maamma (Watford), or Yassir Zabiri from Famalicao. He is pulling the Moroccan team upwards, analyzes a French recruiter: "Gessime Yassine recovers many balls, senses things, reads situations, and then wins fouls, because you can no longer take the ball from him! He is very generous in his efforts, like his team... It looks like a club team. Each run is carried out at 110%, like in December 2022, with the A team in Qatar [...] That makes an incredible difference with the other selections."

The year 2025 is exceptional for the young Moroccan selections. The U20s have already reached the final of the CAN in their category against South Africa, who won on penalties. A first since 1997. As for the U17s, they made history by winning the CAN against Mali at home. The U23s had won the CAN in 2023, and the Moroccan hopes had shone at the 2024 Paris Games, winning a bronze medal. The young talents are well supervised by former internationals like Noureddine Naybet, Nabil Baha, Tarik Sektioui or Mohamed Ouahbi, the current U20 coach.