Morocco coach Henri Michel to reform the squad at grass-root level

(AP) - Morocco coach Henri Michel plans to make sweeping changes ahead of the World Cup qualifiers after his team was knocked out of the African Cup of Nations.

The 2004 African Cup finalists lost 2-0 to Ghana on Monday and were beaten 3-1 by Guinea last week to exit the competition despite starting with a 5-1 win over Namibia.

Michel, who coached France to third place at the 1986 World Cup and took charge of Ivory Coast at the 2006 World Cup, feels let down by his players.

I thought we had a quality group to face up to this tournament, allowing us to have many different solutions, Michel said. We realize that’s not the case. We are not at the level we need to be competitive.

The 60-year-old Michel thinks major changes are needed to try and reform a squad at grass-root level after having been in charge of Morocco for just over a year.

We have several months before the World Cup qualifiers to try and sort this out, he said.

Michel criticized his players for not making a single tackle against Ghana, but feels qualification was lost against Guinea because of unforced defensive errors.

Against Guinea, we should have won easily but we were beaten by childish mistakes, Michel said.

Despite Michel’s criticisms, Morocco captain Youssef Safri is still backing the coach.

I think he still has the confidence of the players, Safri said.

Defender Abdeslam Ouaddou agreed that the team lacked concentration during the tournament.

We have to learn from this competition what we did wrong, Ouaddou said. We have to sort out the mistakes we made from free kicks. We conceded too many goals from free kicks.

Ouaddou now wants to know about Michel’s plans.

Maybe he saw some things, maybe he noticed something. We will see what the changes are, he said.