World Cup 2018: Many of Team Morocco’s biggest fans are from this country
When the Dutch national football team did not qualify for World Cup 2018, several high-profile supporters from the Netherlands turned to Morocco, cheering them on in Darija, the Moroccan Arabic dialect.
Among them is celebrated football coach Louis van Gaal, who took team Oranje to the semi-finals in 2014, where they placed third. Also among Morocco’s new supporters are current footballer Wesley Sneijder and former star players Patrick Kluivert and Ruud van Nistelrooy.
And on June 15, the day of Morocco’s first match of the tournament, the tabloid newspaper Metro created quite a stir with its cover photo. The entire front page was covered with a gigantic Moroccan flag with the headline “Hup Marokko Hup”, which is an adaptation of the traditional cheer for the Dutch team “Hup Holland Hup”. Their Facebook page was inundated with furious Dutch supporters accusing them of disloyalty to the Netherlands.
So what’s the reason for the support? First, Morocco’s national team has five Dutch-born players who chose to play for the Moroccan national team: Moubarak Boussoufa, Karim El Ahmadi, Hakim Ziyech and the Amrabat brothers, Nordin and Sofyan. Three of them play for Dutch league teams, and Hakim Ziyech is one of the rising stars of Amsterdam’s Ajax.
It's your time, Hakim! ??
— AFC Ajax (@AFCAjax) June 15, 2018
Leave a '??' if you support our architect! #WorldCup #DimaMaghreb #marira pic.twitter.com/7FKH9Bg74Y
All Dutch Moroccans get dual nationality on the basis of citizenship by descent and can choose which nation they want to represent. This has been a bone of contention among some Dutch football fans, who have been quick to claim treachery.
Second, as Van Gaal says in his tweet, such popularity is “because Moroccans are very much represented among the Dutch people”. There are about 400,000 Dutch people of Moroccan origin in the country.
Wearing a mint green t-shirt in the video, Van Gaal addresses the Moroccans in Dutch. He says green signifies his support for both Morocco and Portugal, where he lives (Wednesday’s match, Morocco versus Portugal, should be an especially interesting event in the van Gaal household). He ends the video saying, “Oesoud Atlas, mabroek Maghreb, yallah!”, which has been a cause for much hilarity on social media.
Wesley Sneijder’s video shows him reclining on a pile of cushions and singing in support of the Atlas Lions. Actor Nasrdin Dchar tweeted it with an emotional message: “It would be a beautiful statement to all the fearmongers and people sowing hatred if we as the Netherlands support the Moroccan team.”
Support for the Moroccan team is especially heartening for Dutch Moroccans, as they have often been the target of right-wing groups claiming that they are responsible for eroding Dutch culture, rising crime and the so-called “Islamisation” of the country. Populist right-wing politician Geert Wilders, one of the biggest critics of Dutch Moroccans, was indicted in 2016 for hate speech and discrimination against the community.
A poll of 18,000 people by Dutch broadcaster showed that some 30 per cent of the participants back Belgium; 18 per cent, Germany; and 4 per cent, Morocco.
(Writing by Susan Muthlaly; Editing by Seban Scaria seban.scaria@thomsonreuters.com)
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Susan Muthalaly