Going around Doha after Morocco's historic victory over Portugal took you to Rabat, Marrakech or Fez. Red flags with the green five-pointed star on all highway signs. "Congratulations for being in the semifinals", also read in many of them. The Arab world has united around a team that, whatever happens against France, is already part of the legend. En-Nesyri's goal, Bono's saves or Amrabat's leadership. The success of the Atlas lions has many fathers but none like Walid Regragui (Corbeil-Essones, 1975), who came into the world in France with a Moroccan heart.
"It's incredible what his career has relaunched in the last three months, it's been brilliant," exclaims Javier Casquero, Regragui's former teammate during his time as a player at Racing Santander (2004-06). He is not wrong. The trajectory of the Franco-Moroccan coach on the bench is being meteoric. In 2016, at the helm of FUS Rabat, a club founded in 1946, he led the team to win the first league in its history. In 2020 he made a stop in Qatar and won the league with Al Duhail, in whose facilities he trains during the World Cup. Later, to Wydad Casablanca, with whom he won the African Champions League against the great favourite, Al Ahly. It was then that a Tunisian commentator nicknamed him “the Moroccan Guardiola”, although he also professes admiration for Simeone and Ancelotti.
But Casquero is referring to his spectacular success as a coach. The Bosnian Halihodzic's conflict with the federation opened the doors of the national team, which he took over last September. Three months later, after eight games in which he has not lost any and in which he has conceded only one goal, he has led Morocco to the semifinals of a World Cup. “He was a very natural and very educated boy, very good for the group. He was one of those who when you spoke to him and because of the commitment he showed and the way he said things you could sense that he would be a coach”, recalls Lucas Alcaraz, who directed him at El Sardinero in the 2004-05 academic year.
Regragui's parents moved from Fnideq, a town located one kilometer from Ceuta, to Corbeil-Essones, on the outskirts of Paris. There, at number 25 Avenida Presidente Allende, Regragui grew up already with a ball between his eyebrows. He was a physical marvel and in Montconseil, his neighborhood, he was already nicknamed "the child prodigy" from a very young age. In the local team he discovered Rudi Garcia, who in 1994 made his first steps as a coach. Back then, his mother, Fatima, never went to see him play. She, like her, had never gone to see him train either. Until now. Walid begged her to travel to Qatar and managed to convince her. Going to hug her was the first thing he did as soon as he eliminated Portugal.
Regragui, who brought in two Spanish physical trainers when he signed with the Moroccan federation (Edu Domínguez and Juan Solla), has unified the Moroccan team –Ziyech and Hamraoui did not play with the previous coach– and has convinced them of their possibilities. A power of conviction and sense of team that he already possessed when he was a footballer. “He created a very interesting atmosphere and harmony in the dressing room. I remember him as someone very happy, it's not that he had great leadership but he transmitted enormous positive energy and people listened to him, ”says Damià Abella, who also shared a dressing room with Regragui at Racing. “He was outgoing, very nice and had a good conversation. He was also a modern Muslim, Europeanized I would say, ”adds Pablo Alfaro, another ex-racinguista. "He was a very good teammate, even if he didn't play or was injured, he tried to keep the group together," concludes Casquero.
Regragui, with dual nationality, will be followed on Wednesday by all eyes. Morocco, Africa and the entire Arab world will be watching him. It is what he has to play a World Cup semifinals for the first time.
