Morocco reap the rewards with Hakim Ziyech back and at his best

When Walid Regragui took over as Morocco coach with the World Cup on the horizon, he knew the decision he had to make first.

With one of his first acts in charge, Hakim Ziyech, banished out into the cold by former boss Vahid Halilhodzic over his willingness to play for the national side, was welcomed warmly back into the fold.

An often divisive figure at Chelsea, Ziyech has routinely struggled for consistent form and playing time for long periods at Stamford Bridge, his body language not helping the observation that this is a player the club have yet to properly get the best out of, the swagger and arrogance that has been seen to such positive effect in this tournament too often coming off instead as a negative.

Here in Qatar, though, back amongst his countrymen on the grandest stage of all, Ziyech is now showing just how good he can be when player and team are properly aligned.

After a lively if not ultimately decisive performance in the opening draw with Croatia on Wednesday, Ziyech came properly to life against Belgium on Sunday, the catalyst to, and driving force behind, a famous Atlas Lions win.

Regragui knows, as he did when he was appointed, just how important his main man is.

“He is incredible, the spirit he has, coming back to the national team,” the coach said after the game. “A lot of people talk about him, say he is crazy and difficult to manage, that he can’t help the team.

“But when you give him the love and confidence, he will die for you. He is a key player and a different player with the national team.”

It was Ziyech himself who thought he’d opened the scoring, his curling free-kick from out wide going past everyone and into the Belgian net in first-half stoppage time only to be ruled out after VAR intervention with Romain Saiss in an offside position and interfering with play.

He continued to press and probe and pop up between the lines, however, his speed of foot and thought a constant problem to the Belgian backline as Morocco began to sense a famous win against the world’s second-ranked side.

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And so it would come, first Saiss getting the slightest of touches to Abdelhamid Sabiri’s wicked, whipping free-kick to lift the roof off the Thumama Stadium before it was left to Ziyech himself to help rubber stamp the three points, just a third World Cup win in the country’s history and a first since 1998.

Breaking free on the right, he ghosted around Timothy Castagne with ease before cutting back perfectly for Zakaria Aboukhlal to slam home.

Chosen as player of the match for his performance, Ziyech instead preferred to point to the collective.

“I don’t think I deserve it to be honest,” he said afterwards. “It’s something we did together, It’s for everybody (in the team) and everybody who was behind us. It’s hard to pick one (player) because we did it all together.”

Four points in Group F already secured, a fifth against Canada on Thursday would now be enough to seal a first journey to the last-16 since Mexico 86.

Regragui, though, knows the job is far from done.

“Today we have achieved nothing,” he added. “I know everyone is delighted but I know football and you need to respect the game.

“I want everybody to be happy now but we need to recover quickly and get back to work. Canada will be a hard team to play and we have to respect them.

“We have to keep fighting, we want to get past this round and go to the next level.”

To get to that next level they can surely rely on Ziyech, a talisman already operating on a higher plane.