China Daily Global Edition (USA)
Girded for gridiron
Self-taught coach leads Morocco’s first American football team
RABAT, Morocco — Under the scorching summer sun, coach Ichtar Zahraoui bellows directions to “the Pirates”, young Moroccan men and women learning to play American gridiron.
Focused and sweaty, 30 players gather every Sunday to practice the sport, an unusual scene in a country obsessed with soccer, the world’s more common form of football.
“It’s not easy to make young Moroccans love American football,” said Zahraoui, a 39-year-old woman.
“It’s an aggressive sport that requires a lot of energy, work and equipment,” added the coach, who founded the Pirates men’s and women’s teams in 2017.
Lacking numbers and resources, they train together on the same modest plot of land in the heart of Rabat’s Old Town — and if that’s not available, on one of the capital’s beaches.
At practice the two squads zig-zag between cones and plow into tackling dummies, training pads and sometimes each other.
Without hesitation, the players — mostly students aged under 30, recruited by word of mouth — form mixed teams and alternate on offense and defense.
“We’re trying to make the sport known and to explain to people that this isn’t rugby,” Zahraoui said.
A ‘real team’
The breathless self-taught coach has dreams of setting up the kingdom’s “first real football team”.
To do so, she needs the support of an “American coach and a large NFL club”, she said, referring to the National Football League in the United States — with which she has had “interesting contacts”.
American football made its debut in Morocco in 2012 with the creation of amateur teams in cities like Casablanca, Rabat and Tangiers. Two years later, the men’s national team won the inaugural African championship.
In 2015, Morocco’s first women’s team — the “Black Mambas” — was formed in Rabat.
The sight of women playing the rough sport in the conservative Muslim nation has sparked interest from Moroccan media, but Zahraoui said she has never encountered a “problem of a sexist nature” since launching the project.
“What we need are teams, a federation, coaches, referees, trainers and a championship,” she added.
For now, the Pirates prefer to play flag football, a watered-down, low-contact version of the sport that requires little equipment.
The lighter touch has helped attract participants from sports such as basketball and judo who otherwise might not have joined.
“I came to watch a friend train, but the coach convinced me to give it a try,” said Ghita Ouassil.
The chance encounter last year has turned the 21-yearold English literature student into a football regular.
“Before I tried this sport I was shy, but football helps develop your personality and self-control and to be less tense,” she said.