SME-About Almountakhab Moroccan newspaper-Written by: Badr Al-Din Al-Idrisi
Amin Benhachem turns over ideas in his head, quickly traversing the maps of hope and paths of hope to begin his American World Cup with something that history will remember, something resembling the writing of the first chapters of an epic. He finds, among all the possible paths, only one path to which he can entrust his dreams and the dreams of the nation’s Wydad: to prepare his team as a unified unit, highly skilled in positional defense, against a team that doesn’t breathe outside of possession and is only adept at possessing possession and playing relentlessly in the opponent’s territory.
This is the fundamentals of playing with the big boys, which requires Wydad to be aware of its capabilities, limits, and potential, never throwing itself into danger. From all of this, we understand that Guardiola, who described his final season as the worst of his coaching career, in light of the bouts of relegation and disintegration that struck Manchester City in all the competitions it entered, neither was he among the continent’s elite in the top four, nor did he enjoy, as he usually does, the art of playing with the utmost pride and vigor. We also understand that Guardiola is bringing the Citizens to the Club World Cup to correct a broken image. Of course, he wants to rise from all the ruins into which he has fallen. Therefore, it would be disastrous if Manchester City lost its way in the group stage. Therefore, he will enter the Wydad match on Wednesday, cautious and vigilant, but without compromising his nature and tactical identity, which he acquired with the philosopher Guardiola. Amine Benhachem reads Guardiola’s intentions on the page of the imaginary match, so he will take one path and no other: to play with a block system that moves with intense concentration. If City forces him to play with a descending block, he will accept to play that way, without being ashamed of the bus system, without exposing the parts of this bus, which stands like a solid wall, to damage, and without disintegrating defensively, because any failure to maintain cohesion when playing defensively will expose the entire system to damage. After that, the way the ball is brought out of the area will play a role, and any role, in opening the front of hope to cause pain to City’s defense. Benhachem, in his introduction to his opening match against Manchester City, said he draws much of his inspiration from the national team, which left a lasting legacy in the global memory at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. He didn’t just intend to take full responsibility for honoring Moroccan football, which has become a global landmark, but also to draw inspiration from the way the Atlas Lions managed the World Cup group stage, particularly the opening match against Croatia, who arrived in Qatar as runners-up in the 2018 World Cup. This match earned the Atlas Lions a key point in their World Cup campaign. The Olympic team did the same thing when they opened the 2024 Paris Games, where they were blocked from the start by Argentina. With great skill, our Olympians endured the pressure of the match and the fury of their opponents until they finally broke through and achieved the victory that gave them wings to soar into the skies of the greats. Inspiration is the path to moving the levers of inspiration, and no one can confiscate Wydad and Benhachem’s dreams of making this third World Cup for the nation’s Wydad an exceptional one. We just have to put our trust in God, and the rest is up to Him.
