Morocco, Africa, and Football:
on the fine art of polishing our turf.

It is a spectacle of the most enchanting poetry. In this best of all possible worlds, where certainty crumbles beneath the relentless weight of inflation and electoral promises wither long before the dawn, it is supremely reassuring that the salvation of an entire nation can hang upon the parabolic trajectory of a hand-stitched leather sphere. Morocco, the sole African and Arab nation in the quarterfinals, has conquered the sixth place in the FIFA world rankings in the glorious aftermath of the 2026 World Cup; ranking sixth, mind you, squarely ahead of exhausted empires and fallen republics! The people exalt, and they are perfectly right to inebriate themselves with this nectar; for if the suffocating calculations of the everyday crush the mind, the geometry of the pitch leaves the spirit unconfined.

In the post-Green-March era, football stands as the supreme beacon of social cohesion, a miraculous catalyst for nationalism, and the ultimate sanctuary of popular faith; we have transitioned flawlessly from the economy of the Baraka to the theology of the Niyya. Within a thoroughly disenchanted world, this dim glow permits us to dream, to hope we might yet outwit our precalculated fate. The arenas of steel and concrete, blossoming in a frenzy of construction from Tangier to Agadir, serve as our modern coliseums, where every official match transforms into a mass of staggering efficacy.

The populace, thoroughly exhausted by the material demands of a violent economic transition, follows its modern warriors with a devotion bordering on the mystical. Fascinated by these millionaire gladiators who generously sweat for the homeland, the masses draw inspiration, project their wildest hopes, and seek a collective redemption; meanwhile, the elites of the realm, safely barricaded within the plush velvet of VIP lounges, elegantly uncork the champagne of grand accords and sign, in a gilded silence, the deals of the century.

The masterpiece is all the more exquisite given that we languish in the sterile epoch of data, predictive algorithms, and probabilist coldness. Yet what weapon does Moroccan genius deploy to crush the infamous dictatorship of calculation? Niyya. This dazzling concept, hovering delicately between spiritual candor, magical thinking, and the thousand and one nights fables, was elevated to an unshakeable national dogma following the Qatari miracle of Walid Regragui. Simply purify your intentions, trust blindly in providence, and the universe will obediently align to push the ball into the back of the net. SIR, SIR, SIR!

The heart of a nation demands rituals lest it cease to beat, yet the foundations of our traditional temples are horribly riddled with cracks. In former days, families diligently sculpted their progeny to conform to the rigid contours of societal norms while the mosque dictated the tempo of public morality, dispensing sermons of peace, patience, and social cohesion under the watchful, benevolent eye of a State heavily invested in order. That era is dead. Today, they manage to assemble a motley crowd only by the grace of Friday prayers or beneath the festive lights of Ramadan. Worse still, the institution of the family dissolves rapidly into the acid of an imported individualism, whilst the religious establishment struggles pitifully to compete with the deafening roar of digital imams who, from the safety of their glowing smartphones, distill upon social media a rhetoric that is helplessly biased, hopelessly radical, and wholly untamable. Faced with this social and digital fragmentation threatening to atomize our dear youth, the Power found its most brilliant counterattack upon a rectangle of green.

The stadium has usurped the minaret. The new national communion requires no incense; it carries the inebriating scent of freshly mown grass. One need only observe the majestic ballet of our Atlas Lions: a goalscorer tenderly kisses the forehead of his hijab-wearing mother beneath the flashing bulbs of global press agencies, instantly elevating filial piety to a cardinal virtue of Moroccan identity, before the team prostrates itself in a collective prayer after every win, permanently sealing the glorious tale. It is clean. It is edifying. Even Diaz hastily adopted the choreography during this last World Cup, eagerly validating his emotional passport in the eyes of a weeping nation. This stupefying amalgamation of religious authenticity and tactical modernity constitutes the ultimate ideological weapon. To speak to the people today, one must no longer read them decrees or fatwas; one must simply show them loving sons and men of faith.

Yet this magnificent veneer occasionally cracks beneath the intolerable weight of human frailty. And herein lies the exquisite beauty of the drama! At the precise moment the state machinery unfurls the picture-perfect image of the pious young lad, the ghost of Hakimi resurfaces. It is utterly fascinating to observe our collective complacency; we chastely close our eyes to unsavory Parisian legal entanglements that invariably bubble up on the eve of grand appointments. A truly tolerable schizophrenia. We loudly worship the prodigal son in Rabat, whilst silently ignoring the accused in Paris. The infamous always fades before the poetry of a sliding tackle, and besides, Paris never tires of trials nor of top-secret gossip.

July 2026 shall remain inscribed in the political annals of the Kingdom as the day the masks elegantly fell. The masses joined Ceuta. Fouzi Lekjaa joined the PAM. The great financier of the State, titular president of the Federation, and undisputed architect of the Moroccan miracle, formally took his seat at the table of the Authenticity and Modernity Party. The fools saw this as a surprise. The wise perceive in it the natural culmination of a political system perfectly engineered to adapt to the shifting gravity of the street.

Lekjaa embodies, through his sporting triumphs and ruthless budgetary rigor, the sheer efficiency dreamed of by a citizenry utterly nauseated by the mediocrity of its traditional representatives. Through him, the Power seemingly grants the people's dearest wish, offering a leadership that mirrors the gleaming values touted by his party. His entrance into the arena is the central cog in a well-oiled machine.: the Swiss army knife strictly necessary for both the 2030 World Cup and the Sahrawi dossier.

You see, to secure the total international unction regarding the Sahara affair, we require the full theatrical production: elections boasting a crystal-like transparency and massive public mobilization, transforming every single ballot into an undisputed certificate of democratic viability. It is a wonderfully oiled piece of theater, unless, of course, the fate of our provinces has already been permanently sealed for the sake of green hydrogen pipelines. Furthermore, to force the masses to swallow the bitter potions of future structural reforms, to justify the severity of a ruthlessly strangled budget, and to excuse the colossal allocation of billions toward the concrete of our new stadiums, a moral guarantor was desperately required. The aura of football acts as a general anesthetic. Under the noble guise of sporting patriotism, all social resistance dissolves effortlessly into the glorious fervor of global preparation. The people will vote; they will sing without a care; they will forget to riot in the public square.

The truth is that the Moroccan government, in its executive iteration, is fundamentally designed as an instrument of shock absorption. Consider the tragic destiny of Abdelilah Benkirane, that flamboyant orator, half-preacher and half-tribune, installed on the very eve of the Arab Spring, that pesky period of revolt which so unfortunately destabilized our Mediterranean neighbors. He had somehow convinced himself that his charismatic popularity equated to actual power; he captivated the crowds, boldly justified the unjustifiable, and shredded the compensation fund in the sacred name of reformist audacity, only to be promptly swept from the grand chessboard once his capacity for distraction had expired, emptied of his substance and dismissed with all the very special regard reserved for cumbersome servants.

Aziz Akhannouch, on the other hand, is cut from an entirely different cloth. He possesses neither the endless logorrhea of his predecessor, nor his neurotic, desperate need to please the plebs. He represents the absolute triumph of mercantile rationality. As a grand master of the rentier economy and undisputed specialist in the collection of subsidies, he embodies the perfect oxymoron: to track down and carefully plug the leaks of a failing economic system, install at its helm the very man who had fed upon it most generously! The current head of government rapidly assimilated the complex grammar of Moroccan Power, realizing perfectly well that political parties are mere interchangeable brands, and he hastened to place his fiercest loyalists at the strategic levers of the State, methodically preparing the consolidation of his own vast interests. And when Lekjaa made official his rally to the PAM, thereby threatening the hegemony of his own party, Akhannouch feigned deep offense, denouncing an "electoral mercato" with the tranquil cynicism of a man who knows that, in this championship, the referee invariably belongs to his very own camp. We eagerly await to see which team he will favor this September.

Let us plunge, if you will permit me, into the tortured psyche of this "blad skizo," a flagship song by Hoba Hoba in 2009 that remains an agonizing reality a full generation later. What does the Moroccan populace truly demand? Bread? The market is overflowing with it, heavily subsidized to maintain the grand illusion of satiety. Cake? It is devoured in scandalous abundance within the gilded salons of Casablanca's golden triangle. The State prides itself on distributing a whopping 500 dirhams of direct social aid to the most destitute among us. A sheer pittance. Yet what on earth can one purchase with 500 dirhams when a deaf and vicious inflation devours every last morsel of dignity, when red meat proudly struts at 130 dirhams a kilo, when vegetables demand the price of euros, and when the sprawling informal sector steadily gnaws away at the life expectancy of a population thrown mercilessly to the unpredictable whims of fate?

Armed with its statistical spectacles, the HCP asks with the most touching candor: why do Moroccans not feel the marvelous dividends of a proudly advertised 4% growth? It is a fathomless mystery, which a brief stroll through Hay Moulay Rachid would cure in a matter of seconds! Must we gently remind them that a solid 45% of official employees agonize daily at minimum wage, to say nothing of the ghostly legions of workers who operate entirely beneath the radar of salary decency? Even the middle class, theoretically positioned to catch the magical trickle-down crumbs, no longer finds its account in this miserable game; past a certain threshold of solvency, money simply ceases to mask the ugliness of the living environment or the crushing anxiety of the month's end. Therefore, deprived of genuine bread and lacking a desirable horizon, one fraction of the people chooses the perilous road to Ceuta, whilst the other clamors for the Cup. Perhaps it's time to listen to Hoba and appoint psychiatrists other than El Otmani?

Meanwhile, official Morocco continues to meticulously cultivate its passion for superficial grandeur; for oh, how we adore grandeur! Or rather, we cultivate a devouring passion for the aesthetics of the facade, a lovely mirage inherited from our Middle Eastern brethren. A recent dispatch proudly celebrated the classification of Rabat's new university hospital as "the tallest in Africa." A vertiginous glass obelisk entirely dedicated to healing! The national ego is safe. But push open the doors of this magnificent temple: who, precisely, will treat the sick? The sweeping architecture beautifully nurses the national pride, yet the reality on the ground is an entirely different malady. Our brilliant physicians pack their bags by the cartload, crossing the Mediterranean to find in France, in Germany, or elsewhere, decent salaries, functional equipment, and a solitary ounce of human consideration. And in the forgotten corridors of the provinces abandoned entirely to their grim fate, the patient trembles before the absolute destitution of the medical equipment, and occasionally, before the intellectual abyss of certain second-rate practitioners who obtained their diplomas through the noble art of copy-pasting. The concrete gleams brightly in the sun. The morgues overflow in the shade.

Education hardly escapes this dreary vaudeville. The grand builders of the State organize sumptuous conventions and draft strategic visions reaching all the way to 2030, while the teacher, thoroughly pauperized by a miserable wage, faces a hostile arena of students entirely alone. And what students they are! Captive minds possessing the memory of a goldfish, rendered thoroughly haggard by the frenetic consumption of portable screens, raised faithfully on the algorithms of TikTok rather than quadratic equations. How on earth can one teach them critical thinking or the complex history of their nation when their attention span cannot possibly exceed the seven agonizing seconds imposed by their digital masters? The State constructs first-world infrastructure for a youth that its own educational system stubbornly maintains in the third world.

Finally, we arrive at our endlessly insoluble relationship with the continent. Here we are, proudly sporting our glittering badge as the sixth greatest footballing nation on earth, the uncontested champions of Africa, parading with supreme arrogance before our Sub-Saharan peers. A truly delicious hubris. Yet, should we trade, just for a moment, the shiny FIFA ranking tables for the cold reality of the Human Development Index, our smug smiles would freeze instantly in place.

Why do we lack the audacity to compare ourselves to Mauritius or the Seychelles when evaluating population literacy and universal healthcare coverage? Yes, they are African nations, whether it displeases your delicate sensibilities or not, where educational excellence happily marries high-quality care. And what of Nigeria? We look down upon this giant with a desolating haughtiness, snickering at a failing electrical grid that plunges them into darkness every other week. And yet, amidst the capricious shadows of Lagos, a vertiginous technological ferment gives birth to tech unicorns and a sprawling network of start-ups that mercilessly relegate our innovation parks to the rank of sheer amateurs. One creates global wealth by the dim light of a roaring generator, whilst the other lovingly perfects, beneath the pale glow of LED streetlamps, its status as a subcontracting assembly plant for an exhausted European industry, whose sole competitive advantage is finding underpaid labor to challenge the Chinese robots and automaton.

This imbalance is certainly not devoid of diplomatic consequence, for it violently illuminates the reasons for our persistent discomfort within the African fold. We simply cannot comprehend the bitterness of Senegal, our ancient brothers of spiritual blood, nor the recurrent irritation of our peers in the African Union facing our allegedly predatory behavior. To pierce the mystery of this rejection, one need only hold a mirror to the collective conscience. The tragedy of the Moroccan is his frightful identity crisis: through a sort of chronic geographical amnesia and an obstinate cultural colorblindness, the street fiercely refuses to admit that it lives on African soil. To the popular unconscious, the African is the Other. The Sub-Saharan.

Pose the question in the streets of Casablanca or Fez: do they feel African? "No," they will reply with an embarrassed smile. Do they feel Maghrebi? "Not really," given that this concept now seems inextricably linked to a sterile and combative neighborhood. Some even wonder why we shouldn't simply play in the Euros instead of the African Cup of Nations, because the Moroccan, you see, dreams only of being a Zmagri. He dreams of a red passport that arrives in a plated car to distribute summer offerings and complain bitterly about corruption and the unbearable cost of living, while remaining eternally trapped in a psychological transit zone, entirely incapable of freeing himself from his colonized past. With his mind strolling the Parisian boulevards and his feet planted firmly in the red earth of the Tadla, he gazes upon the Andalusian coast from the beaches of Tangier and persists in the glorious delusion that a simple strait of water is nothing but a grand misunderstanding of history. This notorious inability to inhabit one's own continent generates a poorly camouflaged diplomatic arrogance, one that the thin veneer of "South-South" ideology or CAF sporting cooperation scarcely softens. We proclaim ourselves African to the frantic rhythm of the Gnaouas, in the hushed corridors of chancelleries, and when opening bank branches in Dakar, but we feign deep offense at being lumped into the same category the very moment we snap out of the trance.

Ultimately, here we sit in the very heart of a schizophrenic land. A country that vigorously erects its national pride through the strike of football cleats, swooning over the perfect symmetry of its hybrid pitches so as to cleverly avoid measuring the yawning asymmetry of its social classes. We have truly become the master goldsmiths of the parade. The lion is naked, yet he wears the most beautiful jersey in Africa.

As long as the team wins, political time is miraculously suspended, hunger remains comfortably silent, and poverty becomes almost bearable. We shall continue to vibrate to the exploits of our Lions, to invoke Niyya at the slightest hint of trouble, and to gaze in sheer adoration at the majestic height of our empty towers. We will loudly applaud the ruthless efficiency of Fouzi Lekjaa, all while knowing perfectly well that the actual structures of our daily existence remain horribly fragile and deeply unfair.

Football is our truest mirror: it grants us the enchanting illusion of a collective greatness that our grim social reality still flatly denies us. But the day will invariably come when the blinding spotlights of the Moulay Abdellah stadium flick off, when the deafening clamors of the 2030 finale lose themselves in the cold night of the capital, and when the crowd, drunk on exhaustion and thoroughly disillusioned with hollow victories, must inevitably retrace its steps toward a fleshless reality. It remains only to be seen precisely how long a populace can subsist on sporting dreams before reality abruptly blows the whistle for the penalty shootout.

For beyond these apparent exploits, we must eventually cease to polish the turf and, at long last, cultivate our garden. No concrete architecture, monumental though it may be, can salvage a harvest when the seed itself is mainly flawed. Neither the diamond formation, nor the pious kiss upon the forehead, nor the gilded promises of a technocrat shall spare us from this final reckoning.

The match comes to its end, the score remains a draw, yet we gladly harbor hope, we loudly invoke God... and hands tied, Ndirou Niyya!

Written by Wiam ATFI, sharpened and translated by Voltaire AI 

July, 31, 2026