Morocco 🇲🇦 is back with a bang

Where is Yassin? This was the question hanging over the biggest banner ever seen in RBK&C and waved at each end by the two set of fans as to signify that Yassin belongs to football as much as to the CLUB.

Speculation has been ripe, inevitably so: Yassin has not turned up for a game since the World Cup. The decision by the Moroccan national team coach to preserve Yassin for the WC final had backfired as he should have been fielded in the semis to take Marocco all the way. Is now Yassin prevented to play games so he can always be fit when called up for national duty? Or is PSG paying him not to play to avoid injuries until they‘ve found a way to unload Messi in the certainty that the Argentina market value would collapse when playing next to Yassin?

The Qatari, who own PSG, are not short of money and they are throwing everything in: they are very well aware of the CLUB need to find a new stadium and to that extent they have offered, among others, to relocate to Kensington the 974 stadium (the number is both the containers used to build it and Qatar international prefix) which has been dismantled soon after the end of the World Cup including fans to fill it, something we find naive if not offensive given the unsatisfied and unsatisfiable demand FDs generate at every match.

All the questions and speculations turned out to be redundant the moment Yassin figure was spotted approaching the pitch.  A collective sigh of relief was almost instantly followed by loud cheers and the Orange fan went wild when they saw him putting on the bright vest to face the Colours team who could count on an extra man. True that Hossam was still recovering from an injury but truer still that half Hossam is worth double a fit player.

In fact Colours seized the momentum with Johannes orchestrating a band that issued three loud bangs in rapid succession while any attempt to counter by the Orange team was bouncing off the Colours’ wall and they were left chasing shadows. Victor yet again was a fusion of skills and opportunism scoring a brace in no time and fully justifying his private crowd of fans jetting in from 🇧🇷 Brazil.

Christian, while modelling a new pair of shorts, was unmarkable as no one in the Orange squad could follow him in every part of the pitch while he was playing the three roles at once. At 3-0 it was felt that the game was one directional and as such Hossam was handed the iconic vest and it was the Orange time to be one man up. The music changed right away: Hossam pairing up with Massimo gave the Orange defence solidity allowing the center of gravity to be moved further up the the pitch allowing Yassin, Mohammad and Giancarlo to turn from defensive to attacking midfielders with Ben offering constant optionality on the right flank.

With four goals in a row by Mohammad (2) Ben and Yassin it was game on before Colours knew. But, as we learnt time and time again, any team with Johannes and Hannes in it should never be written off. From then on it was a rollercoaster and everything, like in war and love, counted. Bullying and provocations were recurrent psychological weapons used at will to spot the chink in the enemy’s armour. When Giancarlo quickly sent to the stands a ball on Julien running in like a bull, the latter whispered to the Italian ‘ I made you panic, didn’t I?’ ‘ Well, since I was a kid I wanted to keep frogs at a distance…’ was Giancarlo reply only to watch Julien score soon after. The morale is that FDs can take any abuse and most likely it will pump them up to exact a prompt revenge rather than scare the .Received wisdom in modern football does not always apply to the unique world of FDs.

There was only a way this match would end: at 8-8 the golden goal was called in to untie the knot. It was down to Mohammad to lead the Orange to what looked at the start like a most unlikely victory by placing the ball in the right bottom corner after a team text book move put him in front of the opposition keeper.

Mohammad so far has been a bit of an unsung hero: by looking at his stats in terms of goals, assist,passes, mileage he comes out as good as anyone and that did not go unnoticed to the voters who handed him the Man of the Match award. Morocco 🇲🇦 is back with a vengeance.

ORANGE-COLOURS 9-8

GOALS
ORANGE: Yassin (3), Mohammad (4)Johannes (og), Ben
COLOURS: Johannes (2), Victor (3), Julien, Christian (2)

TEAMS
ORANGE: Alessandro, Massimo, Ben, Yassin, Mohammad, Giancarlo
COLOURS: Hannes, Andre’, Christian, Hossam, Johannes, Julien, Victor

Top picture: the 974 Stadium