Morocco Taps Spanish Coach Sara Merino to Lead Women’s Futsal Team

"José Venancio López (the former Spanish futsal coach) called me to ask if I was available. The coach of the Moroccan men’s team had told him that they needed a woman to lead the women’s team," says Sara Merino to El Periódico de Aragon. A few minutes later, Hicham Dguig, the coach of the Moroccan men’s futsal team, writes to her on WhatsApp to offer her the position.

Sara eventually accepted the offer. "Going from a regional team to a national team is dizzying, but I’m very excited and very committed," she explains. The Aragonese says she was recruited without conditions. "They didn’t answer me when I asked if they needed my CV. They just said ’Sara, we need you to be the person who leads women’s futsal in Morocco’," she details.

This is how she went to Morocco with Óscar Horna, a close collaborator with whom she has worked at the Aragonese Football Federation and Futsal Sanse in Madrid. "They said yes to everything we proposed," continued the coach who is aware of the challenge ahead. "It’s not a team different from the European teams, but the others have been working for years. It’s like starting from scratch with players who for the most part have played football."

But Sara reassures: "Technically, there is a lot of level, because they are great players, but the tactical level, positioning and strategy still need to be worked on." Morocco is one of the four African countries to have a national futsal team and has the human, financial and technical resources to go far in this discipline.