Morocco’s Ilias Chair: Belgian-Born Midfielder Faces Home Country in World Cup Clash

Born in 1997 in Antwerp to a Moroccan father and a Polish mother, Ilias Chair went through the Club Brugge youth academy and the Jean-Marc Guillou academy like Faysel Kasmi or Ahmed El Messaoudi (who also played for Morocco), but did not stay too long in the Belgian championship to make an impression. He only played two small matches at the start of the 2015/2016 season with Lierse in the Challenger Pro League (DIB).

"At 18, I asked the club what my future was and they made it clear that I could leave if I wanted to, because I was not a necessary element, that they were looking for other types of players. The problem was that I was very small in size. Every year, I had to prove the opposite to them," said Ilias Chair, 1.72m, in an interview with Talksport. In January 2017, he left Lierse and joined Queens Park Rangers (QPR), a second division English club.

He first joined the youth team, where he gradually asserted himself before being called up to the QPR first team, after a loan to Stevenage. A key piece of the system, he finished the 2019/2020 season with 25 goals and 23 assists in 154 league matches. It was then that the Moroccan selection offered him to join the Atlas Lions under Vahid Halilhodzic. The young player, who had played for Morocco’s U23 and U20 teams, accepted the offer and played in the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations as a starter.

Since the arrival of Walid Regragui, Ilias Chair is a little sought after. He is part of the list of players called up for the World Cup in Qatar. Against Croatia on Wednesday, he remained on the bench. The same scenario could be repeated against the Belgian Devils this Sunday.