Morocco’s Amine Harit Speaks Out on National Team Snub, Questions Coach’s Decision

After criticizing his non-selection at the time, the Moroccan player is coming back to the charge, nearly five months after the national coach’s choice. In an interview with Onze mondial, the Atlas Lion recalled that he made the choice of Morocco out of love for his country. "At the time I chose Morocco, I was in the French Under-21 team. I was overclassed and a starter. I think that if I had continued on my momentum, I could have one day claimed a place in the French A team. I made a real choice of the heart. Let’s not lie, there is a gap between the French and Moroccan football teams. But I made a choice of the heart, a choice of love."

For having chosen Morocco instead of France, a great football nation, the Bundesliga star regrets not having received good treatment in return from his country: "When this love, you don’t have it back, you sometimes say to yourself: I was duped. That’s how I take it. Especially when I explode all over the Bundesliga for three months and I’m not selected, without valid reason."

After this sidelining, the former Nantes player called the Bosnian coach to inquire about the reasons behind this decision: "And there, he tells me: ’You were not good during the gatherings’."

Shocked by this response from his coach, he is surprised that after his club performances, which seduce several major European clubs, the technical staff manager comes to justify himself in this way. "Name me a player who had a good game in the gatherings where we were together... I’m not asking him to come and lick my feet to go to the national team, far from it. But I want to have a discussion that would allow me to understand and move forward. I want a constructive exchange so that we all go in the same direction," the Moroccan international wishes.

Given his young age and his experiences, he argues that he represents the future of the national team. "Because I’m young, I’m 22 years old. We are the future of the national team. It’s me, it’s Hakim (Ziyech), it’s Achraf (Hakimi). We are the future. And if there are already problems with us, no one wins in the story," he said.