Morocco Coach Halilhodzic Evaluates Squad Ahead of AFCON 2022

The coach of the Atlas Lions and his technical staff will take stock of the recent matches of the World Cup qualifiers in order to draw up the list of players who will be called up for the AFCON, reports the daily Al Akhbar.

The first meeting was held on Wednesday, the day after the match won against Guinea, according to a source close to the coach, specifying that Mustapha Hadji, Stéphane Gili and the physical trainer, Salaheddine Lahlou, took part in this meeting. The discussions mainly focused on the performance of the players during the 2022 World Cup qualifying matches and the drop in form observed in some of them.

The technical staff plans to make some adjustments to the squad to be formed for the AFCON if these players do not improve their performance, the same source points out. Vahid Halilhodzic has asked his staff to closely study the performance of the starting and non-starting players in their respective clubs. He also intends to closely follow the participation of the A’ team in the Arab Cup which starts at the end of November in Qatar in order to detect some talents that he could recover.

The cases of Hakim Ziyech and Noussair Mazraoui, suspended by the national coach, were not discussed during this meeting. The intervention of the President of the Royal Moroccan Football Federation (FRMF), Fouzi Lekjaâ, is still awaited for their return to the national team.