Morocco U17 Elimination: Coach’s Tactical Failure Sparks Expert Debate

The untimely substitution of Nabil Baha left deep scars. For sports expert Mohamed Achiban, this change in favor of Tiago Lima Pereira shattered a team that was otherwise very cohesive. In these age categories, players often develop "excessive emotional attachment" to their coach. The elimination is therefore no surprise. Moroccan play was reduced to individual exploits without genuine collective structure—total disorganization perfectly illustrated by the final penalty shootout, where players systematically shot where the goalkeeper excelled.

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This failure does not stem from a lack of talent, however. Another analyst told media outlet Hespress that the individual matchup against Senegal clearly favored the Moroccans on a purely technical level. "The raw material is available," he states, but it ran into the void of the coach’s project. The coach was marked by a complete absence of "tactical ideas and solutions," proving incapable of proposing clear schemes—essential for under-17 and under-18 players to forge a true playing identity.

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Faced with this waste, specialists demand renewed confidence in national figures to lead the various categories of the national team. Moroccan football possesses the necessary expertise to win titles without systematically relying on foreigners. Recent successes by the country’s coaches prove this abundantly: Walid Regragui’s epic journey, the brilliant performance of Tarik Sektioui at the Olympic Games, or the groundwork accomplished by Saïd Chiba with youth teams.