Joy and Anxiety Collide as Moroccans Look to World Cup Match With France

Though soccer is highly popular in Morocco, the pride attached to this particular team has gone far beyond sports.

There is the fact that 14 of the team’s players grew up in Europe yet chose to play for the country of their ancestry — making it the team in Qatar with the most nonnative-born players. In Mr. Hakimi’s case, he has said in interviews, he’s playing for Morocco at the World Cup because of the bigotry he has faced in Spain, where he played for Real Madrid, and in Paris, where he now plays for Paris St.-Germain, alongside the biggest star of the France’s national team, Kylian Mbappé.

There is also the fact that several Moroccan players’ parents followed the common path of emigrating to Europe to support their families through menial labor, like Mr. Hakimi’s mother, a house cleaner, and father, a street vendor. Several of the players, including Mr. Hakimi, even insist on giving interviews in Moroccan Arabic, despite speaking English, French or Spanish.

“He’s not ashamed of his background,” Rehima Korriz, 24, who runs a beauty salon in the neighborhood of Mr. Hakimi’s family, said with pride. (When asked about his Arabic, however, honesty compelled her to note that he still spoke with a strong accent.)

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/13/world/middleeast/morocco-world-cup-anxiety.html