Morocco: The Atlas-Lions, Gerets and The Numbers

06/06/12

Otman Affaya
Washington / Morocco News Board ---Regardless of his experience as international player, as a coach he is struggling to manage properly the Moroccan team. In this article we are judging him as a coach based on the results, his tactics, simply on the numbers.
The team was in disarray, total confusion for a few months without a coach. After Mr. Gerets took hold of the team we have seen a big change in the dressing room.

We started talking about a team feared by others. The reality is Moroccan team under Gerets played a 15 games (all games including friendly) his statistics are 7-6-2, so his winning average is about 53%.

I tried to do some statistical analysis since numbers do not lie. Intentionally I choose 3 influential coaches that marked the Moroccan football over the past; we kept 15 games in total.

The data tells us how Gerets and his team struggle in winning. In football a coach is judged based on results.

The following is a diagnose of what were observed during his 20 months as a head coach:

First observation: Gerets is very inconsistent in his training-coaching with a team; this habit had spread to the team and the players. The only time they had a successive double wins was against Algeria home (4-0) the famous victory, Senegal (0-2) away, Niger (0-1) and Burkina Faso (2-0) teams. Successive winning streak is the foundation to a team success. Gerets lack that point. If we look at the coach Faria between 1985-86 he went for 15 games undefeated. Meanwhile Zaki on 20 03-04 recorded 7 games unbeaten.

Second Observation: Mr. Gerets claims he learnt from his mistakes. He made some brilliant adjustments after we lost to Algeria by 1-0 away, he responded by 4-0 in Marrakech.  After the African cup tournament no adjustments recorded.

Third Observation: It shows there is no chemistry between the different lines: defense-midfield-attack  on most of his games due to the lack of communication, understanding, connection between players. This is the work of the coaching staff.

Fourth Observation:  Since their first game under Gerets Moroccan team had conceded 13 goals and  scored 23 goals means  more efficient  attacking team than a defending one. Except along all Gerets games the attack line had created so many chances but struggled to score. Mr. Gerets game after game did not address that weakness, and still unresolved.

A coach with his pedigree needs to hold his ground and stick to his guns but it seems he is having a lot of issues to manage the team and cannot deal with the pressure. He had a decent team to work with prior to the African cup tournament with decent talents. Under the pressure of the media and the federation Gerets went ahead and changed the whole team.

All those signs lead us to formulate the following hypothesis that Gerets is looking for an easy exit from the National team with a fat compensation. He started playing a reverse psychology with the federation and the public by declaring he will never quit the National team and he will finish his working plan after almost 2 years of disappointment.

Finally, my prediction for Saturday game against Ivory Coast based on the data:  on 10 games we played Ivory Coast we have won 2-lost 3-Drew 4 with a winning percentage for Morocco 40%. We beat them twice, lost once, and drew once at home. 

Football is not an exact science, so to me it is going to be a draw again since Ivory Coast is a strong team with lots of experience on the European level. The Moroccan team has a lot to prove at this game if they want to move forward by bringing once again their best game and make some good adjustments.

Othman Affaya is a Varsity Head Coach in Florida,  a member of the National Soccer Coaches Association of America NSCAA,  member of Florida Athletic Coaches Association (FACA), and the World Class Coaching Organization.

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Comments (6)  

 

0 #1 COMMENT_TITLE_R E Morocco: The Atlas-Lions, Gerets & The Numbers — morcelli 2012-06-06 22:02

Thanks for bringing up the state of soccer in Morocco. Without getting too complicated, we simply do not have players in the caliber of Dolmy, haddaoui, timoumi, Krimou laghrissi labayaz, zaki, namris, khayri, bouderbala, and even kita and khaled labyad.

Our players now are just not good enough, I watched Senegal-Morocco and the Senegalese were simply better and much much stronger and they could have beaten Morocco at least 3 goals to nil.
I watched the last CAF and Tunisia outplayed and outsmart them as usual and I am not
even going to mention Gabon.

It is unfair to Gerets to be compared with Faria or Henry Michel when these coaches had some of the best players in Africa if not the world. (Timoumi, zaki, Mustapha Hajji anyone?)

We need to keep in mind that African players are not what they used to be, most of them now play in some of the best leagues in the world, they are better, stronger and even richer.
The last Moroccan team that played against Gambia was a sad fact, We simply cannot find 11 players in a population of 32 millions and we have to pay Foreign coaches millions of dollars and knowing beforehand that they simply cannot do it with the players we have.

I say keep benatia, chammakh, ousama, lamghayri, and get a rid of the rest. Fire Gerets not because he is a bad coach but because he has no good player to work with.
How about a home grown team? just like we did before, we had 3 or 4 players who played outside Morocco, the rest were all from local leagues.

Morocco is trying to skip the hard work of forming a team from scratch hoping for miracles under Gerets, that won't happen. Teams get built from zero, not from relying on rich players in their early 20s.

I am not going to predict who is going to win on Saturday, I will do like everyone else, watch the game and hope for a miracle.

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0 #2 Replay — Otman Affaya 2012-06-07 00:12

Mr Morcelli thank for your comment, there is certain points I totally agree with you, but I always believe that we do have good players .Except that some coaches bring out the best from players and to give Gerets a credit he did after le loss to Algeria by 1-0 –Algerian the team crashed them on the return game by 4-0, but right after that the team went into slump for a certain reasons .To me is a coaching lapse. The coach should know his players strengths and weaknesses, and try to pull the best out of them. After all, we do have talents locally and internationally.
I was a big fan of Eric Gerets I know he is good club coach. He is struggling to deal with the pressure of getting the right result.
The truth is the Moroccan football always has been mismanaged by people that have no expertise on the domain, short vision of things which lead them to the wrong decisions.

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0 #3 COMMENT_TITLE_R E Morocco: The Atlas-Lions, Gerets & The Numbers — Morcelli 2012-06-07 03:41

Si Otman,
As a coach, you know better than many of us that if you do not have the best players out there, you simply cannot beat strong teams. This is a given.
A coach can only do so much, at the end of the day, he is just a spectator watching a game like all of us.
When I watched Senegal-Morocco , it was pretty obvious that we do not have a strong team. We had plenty of time to equalize butwe couldn't, worst, we almost conceded 2 more goals. It would be naive for us to think that this team can qualify to the world cup.
You said " After all, we do have talents locally and internationally . " I have to disagree with you on the local talent, I've watched the botola pro and all I have seen is guys scoring and embarrassingly sucking their thumbs blindly imitating stars like Christiano, I have seen more and more players coloring their hair blondish, I have seen a very long time of celebration and more and more players now kissing the ground as " thank you god" gesture, I have seen players wearing multi-colored cleats to stand out even though they suck.
I do respect the players who play in foreign countries, especially those who were not even born in Morocco but represent Morocco to the best of their abilities like chamach and many others.
As you can tell I am from the old school, I believe that when you score a goal , you high 5 your teammates and you go to the center of the field instead of the thumb sucking thing that make the goal scorer look so ignorant.

I think the Moroccan soccer federation, should fire everyone and start from zero, keep some players, i forgot to add Belhanda in my previous post, the rest need to be shown the door and aim for 2018 World cup and the African nation cup that will take place in Morocco. Now it's just getting painful to watch this fiasco.
There is nothing wrong about starting from scratch and build a strong team instead of hoping.

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0 #4 it's time to fire — us rajawi 2012-06-07 20:36

every one and start fresh with a moroccan team base of moroccans from morocco who are hungry for success and bringing back the glory of moroccan soccer game
sport is a same as politics in morocco dilluted , corrupt and misleading
politics of moroccan dumb and blind leading the dumb and blind

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0 #5 COMMENT_TITLE_R E Morocco: The Atlas-Lions, Gerets & The Numbers — KAMAL` 2012-06-08 01:54

IN ALL FAIRNESS, WHEN YOU PUT IT THAT WAY THATS NOT A BAD RECORD AT ALL!!!

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0 #6 student — Ed Talby 2012-08-24 06:50

When lions form a group, they become a Pride. I see No pride at all with coach Gerets, only lots of SHAME ! Either send this BIG LOSER home or change the Moroccan national soccer team's name to Atlas CUBS, because they are a far cry from Lions. The only lion in the game is Gerets for taking that lion's share of SALARY.

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