Lessons from Morocco
What can the Moroccan football team teach us about nationality?
I recently found myself more enthralled by a football match than I had been in years during the World Cup quarterfinal matchup between Morocco and Portugal. I did not have a horse in the race but that did not stop me from celebrating like a maniac at Morocco’s lone goal in the first half and then proceeding to watch the majority of the second half standing up while gradually shedding perspired layers. At the final whistle I stood up and clapped, yelling “bravi, bravi ragazzi!” (In Italian to players who, as my wife likes to remind me, cannot hear me.) From a footballing perspective, the achievement was massive. In beating Portugal, Morocco became the first African team to make a World Cup semifinal. But why did I, watching alongside my cat from the comfort of my couch in the middle of the dark Danish winter, care so much? Why was I, who has never set foot in Morocco, so invested in the success of the Atlas Lions? Was it a classic case of backing the underdog or was I actively cheering against other European teams out of jealousy because Italy had not even qualified? A bit of both, to be honest. But, there was also something more, something deeper. I found myself identifying with the Moroccan players.
I was born in Italy to two Italian parents. Italian citizen. Italian passport. Quite straightforward, right? Not so fast. My father had grown up in Spain and does not shy away from asserting that he identifies more with the Spanish way of life than the Italian. By the age of six I had lived in three different countries. I spent most of my childhood growing up in the United States. At school I was always ‘the Italian’, despite how much baseball I watched and even, to my own embarrassment, attempted playing. In the summers, my brother and I would travel to Italy with our parents and be known as ‘the Americans’ as we took the first few days to gradually take the edge off of our slightly accented Italian. Since then I have gone on to live, study and work in four other countries and have married a wonderful Danish woman.
So, where am I from?
In the past I used to answer with the clear-cut technical answer: Italian. True, but can I really claim such a thing despite not having lived there full time since I was four years old? Well, I cried when Italy won the World Cup in 2006, I would often counter. That must mean something. Can I answer that I feel American since I spent the most formative years of my life, from ages six to eighteen, there? Well, technically, I am not a US citizen, I would tell whoever would listen. Can I be a bit Dutch? What about Danish now that I have made a home in Denmark? This is the part of the conversation where you start to lose people who, as is often the case, have become accustomed to expecting a one-word answer. What if we embraced this complexity instead of shying away from it? What if we lived in a world where I could be from all these places at the same time and that would be accepted as normal?
For weeks, there had been a lot of discussion in the global mainstream media about the fact that fourteen out of the twenty-six Moroccan players who made the trip to Qatar were born elsewhere (mostly in European countries). A lot of the debate during the lead up to the tournament and throughout it focused on ‘football nationalism’ and the implication that many of these players were ‘not even Moroccan’. As I watched the Dutch-born Sofyan Amrabat from Huizen and Hakim Ziyech from Dronten laying out their limbs for a spot in the final four and shedding actual tears at the final whistle, I began to think about what this meant for them. What about Walid Regragui? The mastermind coach behind the inspiring run who was born in a Parisian suburb. What did being Moroccan mean for Achraf Hakimi, arguably the best right-back in the world? He was born and raised in Madrid by Moroccan parents. He grew up with one foot in one culture and the other foot in another. How did he feel? What did he identify as?
The ever nationalistic political discussions that have dominated headlines in the West in recent years would push us to label Hakimi and his teammates. Far-right politicians the world over would insist that the penalty-saving machine Yassine Bounou cannot be both Spanish and Moroccan. As spectators, and more generally as humans, we like to over-simplify concepts which, are complex in their very nature. We prefer one-worded answers. The more binary, the better. What the Moroccan players showed us is that nationality does not have to be a clear-cut, black-and-white, true or false game. It can be a very nuanced multiple choice question to which one may answer ‘all of the above’. And that is okay. It does not have to be our primary identifier. The Atlas Lions showed us that we can come from many places and that being a citizen of the world is no longer an idealistic cliche thrown out gratuitously at UN general assemblies.
Morocco making the final four of a World Cup is not just a heart warming sporting achievement. It may very well also prove itself a watershed moment in a globalized twenty-first century with more and more people of mixed nationalities. Thank you for this Atlas Lions. I hope that one day my own children will thank you too.
My travel storytelling centers on long form first-hand accounts with a focus on vivid depictions of the local culture through the people I meet along the way. Stay tuned! In the meantime you can find some of my other pieces below:
