“Since 2009, the Mohammed VI Football Academy, based in Salé near the capital Rabat, has been training Moroccan players in facilities that are on a par with the biggest clubs in the world,” wrote French news outlet Ouest France on Wednesday.
Officially established in 2010, the talent development academy boasts a complex that is modern, even said to be ahead of its time, offering various types of playing fields including grass, synthetic, indoor, and even beach soccer.
“With its 18 hectares of modernity, the Academy has nothing to envy about the facilities of European giants,” Ouest France reported.
In addition to football training, the Academy provides education and accommodation for young players in two dormitories and ten classrooms.
Very few clubs provide accommodation, according to the outlet. “The children come to train and go back home. Families were very happy to entrust their children to a structure that, although in its early stages, showed promise for the future, not just in football.”
The first director of the Academy is Nasser Larguet, and as the Academy grows, he noted that its first fruits are beginning to emerge. The most impressive is the semi-final of the 2022 World Cup, where out of the 23 Moroccan heroes, four were trained at the Mohammed VI Academy, and three of those, Azzedine Ounahi, Reda Tagnaouti, Youssef En-Nesyri, and Nayef Aguerd, were rookies.
In addition to training local players, the Academy has also shown the Moroccan diaspora that the country is developing. The Moroccan national team has been able to convince players of Moroccan origin playing for other teams around the world, such as Achraf Hakimi, Hakim Ziyech, Sofyan Amrabat, Noussair Mazraoui, Sofiane Boufal, Amine Harit and others, to play for Morocco’s Atlas Lions, said Larguet.
“That’s when we leaped,” he said. “They saw that we had great potential in the country now. The best Moroccan players born in Europe are clamoring to play for the Moroccan national teams.”
Recently, other promising players of Moroccan origin have also chosen their home country over their country of birth, such as Oussama El Azzouzi (born in the Netherlands) and Ilias Akhomach (born in Spain).
“We have results on the world stage,” Larguet asserted. “This is encouraging players to choose Morocco. Today, Morocco presents a very attractive showcase, and all of this kicked off from the Academy.”
According to the former technical director of the Royal Moroccan Football Federation, the Under-17s qualified for the World Cup for the first time in history, and the Under-23s are already qualified for the next Olympic Games.