ZIYECH TAKES NEXT STEP IN METEORIC RISE TO STARDOM
▶ Moroccan shifts his focus to Africa Cup of Nations qualifying after breathing new life into Chelsea
It has been quite a year in the life of Hakim Ziyech, new wonder of the English Premier League and star attraction as competitive international football returns to Morocco after a very long pause. No sportsman has reached the tail-end of 2020 without learning to be adaptable, but some have managed it better than others. Ziyech, 27, would be high on the list of adaptables.
His diary of the last 12 months swings from pulsating peaks through frustrating troughs. Let’s start with November 2019: Ziyech travels with Ajax to Stamford Bridge, London, for what turns out an extraordinary, career-shaping fixture, a Champions League epic in a tight group.
There are two goals in the first four minutes of a night that will feature two red cards and a pair of penalties. A wild game, in which someone needed to step up and keep their cool.
Cue Ziyech. He directly sets up three Ajax goals, one of them curled impossibly from his magic wand of a left foot, from a tight angle, onto the far post. It goes in off the unfortunate Chelsea goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga’s face.
It finishes 4-4. Most of the participants, still catching breath, then head off for an international break, where Ziyech captains Morocco to the top of their Africa Cup of Nations qualifying group. It is a competition the Atlas Lions can feel optimistic about, not least because of the clutch of players making great strides in European club football, like Internazionale’s new signing Achraf Hakimi and Sevilla’s Europa League winners, goalkeeper Yassine Bounou, and striker Youssef En-Nesyri.
As for Ziyech, he is much sought- after by December 2019, when Chelsea are sounding out Ajax about how much he would cost. Ziyech signs in February, Chelsea paying €40m ($47m) for a player they recruited for a quarter of that amount from Twente four years earlier.
It is agreed that Ajax can squeeze another few months of high-class playmaking out of him: Ziyech and Ajax have a Dutch title to try and retain, a Europa League to aim for and a Cup run to take to its end.
By early March 2020, two of those targets have vanished, with knockout defeats for Ajax in Europe and domestically. By the end of the month, because of the pandemic, the league in the Netherlands has been abandoned.
Ziyech is left in limbo, his Chelsea contract not active until 2020- 21. He watches, post- lockdown, as Chelsea chase a top- four Premier League finish, patiently calculating how his qualities will fit in to a young, learning team.
But the likes of Timo Werner and Kai Havertz must wait. Come September, and after six months without a game, a knee injury rules Ziyech out of the first few weeks of the season.
When he at last makes his debut in Chelsea blue, in October, it is anything but timid. His first appearance, as a second half substitute at home to Southampton, is a deja vu from that see-saw Stamford Bridge night with Ajax. Against Southampton, his new team lead, throw it away, lead again and it ends 3-3.
Someone needs to take control, spread a calm authority. Enter Ziyech into the Chelsea starting XI. The club’s irregular early season form gives way to a run of clean sheets and victories.
In his first four Chelsea starts, Ziyech has two goals and three assists, two of them in last Saturday’s 4-1 win over Sheffield United. He has already been named man of the match three times. “Hakim has brought to us a different element,” beams Frank Lampard, the Chelsea manager.
“We’re delighted with the impact he has had at Chelsea,” said Morocco coach Vahid Halilhodzic ahead of Friday’s meeting with the Central African Republic in Casablanca, resuming Cup of Nations qualifying after almost a year’s delay.
“He is a very important player for us.” A complete player, yes, but with a standout gift: “That lovely left foot,” as Halilhodzic puts it.