Fathi Jamal, provisional manager of Morocco’s national squad

Rabat, Feb. 7 - Moroccan manager Fathi Jamal was appointed as provisional coach of national soccer squad to succeed French Henri Michel, who was sacked following the early exit of Morocco from the 2008 African Cup of Nations.

National technical director and coach of the Moroccan Olympic squad, Fathi Jamal, will assume his duties for a month before appointing a new coach for the national squad, deputy-President of the Moroccan Soccer Federation (FRMF), Mr. Mhamed Aouzal told the press at the end of a FRMF bureau meeting.

According to Mr. Aouzal, Fathi Jamal will lead the national squad in the forthcoming friendly game of the Atlas Lions before Belgium on March 26.

Henri Michel, 60, was sacked for the poor results in the ACN and the attitude he showed in the press conference he gave on January 31 to shed light on the ACN outcome. During this press conference, the Frenchman blamed players on the ACN misadventure saying that the national squad has “excellent players but not high-level players that can change the game at any time instead of collapsing at every moment the team is lagging in score.” He also criticized the national league and sports policy in Morocco.

In the African Cup of Nations, the national squad managed a good start with a 5-1 win over Namibia, but failed to keep the pace and fell to Guinea 3-2 and Ghana 2-0. It is the seventh time that the Atlas Lions quit the African tournament at the first round after Cameroon-1972, Ghana-1978, Senegal-1992, Ghana-Nigeria-2000, Mali-2002 and Egypt-2006.

This early departure sparked off a national-wide sense of bitterness and harsh comments from media, blaming this bad outcome on Henri Michel for his inappropriate technical choices.

(Source: MAP)