About Almountakhab Moroccan newspaper-Written by: Badr Al-Din Al-Idrisi
Behind this Olympic team, I walked long distances, I no longer remember them, between trains and cars, I crossed France up and down, and in my mind a dream resides, and with every step a hope speaks, that behind the clouds resides a crescent.
I was on my way to Paris, accompanied by the media delegation on the same day that the Olympic team was facing the Argentine team, we hurried to arrive at the hotel, perhaps to steal a glance, even from afar, at this team that presented itself in the Argentina match there at the Geoffroy-Guichard Stadium in Saint-Etienne, although it did not come to this Olympics to leave its mark of presence and return to its lair.
From that match that lasted for four hours, we began to read the Moroccan story, and from winning it, the fragrance spread among people and the scent of a dream wafted.
The fall against Ukraine in the same fortress of the Greens in Saint-Etienne, which they reached about two hours before the start of the match, was a pain that heralds the birth of the moon, as such defeats that come at the right time are a lesson learned, and that was confirmed when the Lions defeated the Lions of Mesopotamia with three goals in the Arena Riviera in the city of Nice, there on the Cote d’Azur, but as for me, my pain after that was of a different kind, and the trains returning to Paris were suddenly disrupted.
Don’t mind me or my pain, for the three goals against Iraq to be the title of a historic qualification for the second round at the top of the group, is the formation of a half moon, how could it not be, as the Lions ended a 52-year wait to equal the achievement of passing the first round at the Olympics, which was in 1972 in Munich with the generation of Ahmed Faras.
Exhausted, I arrived in Paris, to be invited in a hurry to go to the Parc des Princes, where a new page of history would be written. The Atlas Lions were ready to pick out its letters and signs, and the miraculous text was born, dazzling. History said, and it is the most honest thing in books, that the Moroccan team wrote the document of ascension for the first time to the Olympic semi-finals, with a broad victory over the United States of America, consisting of four goals. People said after that, this team deserves a place in the dream final, even if the opponent of the match overlooking the final was a Spanish team with a crazy desire to take revenge that is neither old nor new. We renewed our journey to the south of France, and there in the legendary stadium of Marseille, the Velodrome, we had a match with the Spaniards. We advanced in the first round with a goal from the goliador Rahimi, and in the second round we were bitten by the small details that we cannot see with the naked eye, and it was a fall from a high tower. The defeat to the matador blocked the sun of the final from us, and yet the moonlight remained still in the near future, and the Atlas Lions had to gather their patience and endurance, because history, however, was still standing at their door. This time I had to move to the southwest of Paris, to the city of Nantes, 342 km away, there at the La Beaujoire stadium, whose star and legend was the late Henri Michel, the former coach of the national team, and whose historical top scorer was the Bosnian Vahid Halilhodzic. The mind should not have wandered far beyond imagination to determine the location of the final journey, either the Lions would leave their mark and embrace the moon and be immortalized in the memory of the Olympics with a bronze medal, or we would pat them on the back when they lost and be consumed by sadness afterwards. At “La Beaujoire”, attention turned to the bronze final between Morocco and Egypt, and what we experienced in the five matches is one thing, and what we will experience in Nantes, which thousands of Moroccans flocked to as is the case with all their matches, is another thing. Here, the Atlas Lions will write the most beautiful ending to a Moroccan event that the Paris Olympics will remember every time it turns its pages. They will win 6-0 and will present a grand and luxurious show, to return to Paris, to the garden where they were defeated by four goals by the cousins of Yam, to hang around their necks a bronze medal, the first for national football. What a beautiful ending and what a wonderful conclusion to the journey of the Olympic Lions and my journey to 5 French cities.
