Walid Rekragui is a former professional Moroccan soccer player, born on September 23, 1975 in France. He was a right-back. He played for many French teams, the Spanish Racing Santander team, and the Moroccan national team. He became a football coach after retiring from playing.
He trained many teams, and was appointed at the head of the technical management of the Moroccan national football team on August 31, 2022, to lead the Atlas Lions in the 2022 World Cup finals and take them away in the Arab World Cup in Qatar.
Birth and upbringing
Walid Regragui was born on September 23, 1975 in Corbeil-Esson, located on the Seine River, on the outskirts of the French capital, Paris.
He grew up in the Montconsay neighborhood in a Moroccan family descending from the city of Fnideq in northern Morocco. He has dual French and Moroccan citizenship.
He trained in his hometown club, and then joined the “Racing Club de France” or what is known as “Racing Paris” in 1999. This defender played for only 5 clubs during his professional career, 4 of which were in France, which are Toulouse, Ajaccio, Dijon and Grenoble. And one team in Spain is "Racing Santander", with which he spent 3 years from 2004 to 2007.
He was injured immediately after signing for the Spanish team and did not appear in the Spanish League until January 2005 at the Camp Nou against Barcelona, and in 2010 Rakraki ended his professional football career, but he continued for some time to practice at the amateur level in the "Flory" team. Merogis" on the outskirts of Paris, before embarking on training and passing exams to obtain a coaching certificate.
Sports experience (player)
Walid Regragui grew up with a passion for football at an early age. He played for the "Courbay Essonne" team, the team of the region where he was born, under the leadership of the veteran French coach "Rudy Garcia", who is credited with discovering him by chance when he was coaching the first team of Courbaye Essonne.
Walid played two seasons with the first team, but he was still far from being a star, after which he joined the “Racing de Paris” team, which is a third-class club, and there he was spotted by the French football club Toulouse, and worked to include him in the team at the age of 23, and it was This is the "late" start to his professional career.
He reached his highest level with the team and joined the Moroccan national football team under the leadership of Portuguese coach Humberto Coelho in December 2000, but the professional path of El Kerraki witnessed some faltering, especially when the French club terminated his contract after 3 seasons due to financial problems due to sanctions. A tax imposed on the Toulouse club, and forced it to reduce the number of its players.
This made Walid Al-Karaki suffer from the problem of unemployment, as he remained without a team for 6 months, which is what kept him absent from the Moroccan national football team and thus missed participation in the 2002 African Cup of Nations, which was hosted by the state of Mali.
Walid Al-Rakraki during the 2021 African Champions Cup final match against the Egyptian club Al-Ahly (Reuters)
At that time, he needed a team in order to return to the national team to resume his career, and he finally found a solution with the French club “Ajaccio”, which was in the second division, as he contracted with him at the end of 2001 and allowed him to return and resume his football career.
Walid Regragui rose with a team with “Ajaccio” to the first division of the French League, and established himself as one of the main elements of the team, and from here his path to his return to the Moroccan national football team was paved.
During this stage, former international goalkeeper Badou Zaki became the first coach of the Atlas Lions, succeeding the Portuguese Humberto Coelho, and the human composition of the Moroccan national team included a new generation.
And within this reconstituted group, Walid Al-Rakraki was strongly present, especially after the great levels he was presenting with his team in the French League.
Regragui won with the Moroccan national team, under the leadership of Badou Zaki, the ticket to qualify for the African Nations Cup finals in Tunisia in 2004. His sense of humor and ease of communication with him made him an indispensable element within the group, and thus he created an atmosphere of fun within the preparatory gatherings for the Moroccan national football team.
On the field, Rekragui embodied the true and full meaning of the term "corridor player", capable of repelling the opposing team's attackers and rebuilding attacks, overtaking or positioning.
Walid Al-Rakraki's joy after qualifying for the second round of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar (Getty Images)
His readiness and great giving were strongly contributing to the effectiveness of the right corridor of the Atlas Lions, which was confirmed in the historic match of the Moroccan national team against his Algerian counterpart in the 2004 African Cup of Nations final in Tunisia, where he was chosen as the best player in the match, and he was also chosen in the ideal squad for this version. From the African Cup of Nations, the end of which he played with the Moroccan national team against his Tunisian counterpart, where the latter won 2-1.
Regragui participated with the Moroccan national team in two editions of the African Cup of Nations in 2004 and 2006, but he never participated in the World Cup competition, because Morocco did not qualify for this competition from 1998 to 2018.
He participated in 45 international matches, during which he scored one goal. His last match was with the Atlas Lions on June 20, 2009 against the Togolese national team in the match that brought together the two teams at Prince Moulay Abdallah Stadium in Rabat, which ended in a 0-0 draw in the 2010 World Cup qualifiers. hosted by South Africa.
On May 29, 2004, after the great level with which he appeared with the Moroccan national team in the 2004 African Cup of Nations, which was held in Tunisia, where they reached the final against the organizing country, Regragui moved to Racing Santander, which plays in the Spanish first division.
However, 15 days before the start of the Spanish League, Walid Regragui was injured in an accident and was forced to miss half of the season in the Spanish League.
Walid Regragui won with Wydad Casablanca the Moroccan League and the African Champions Cup in 2021 (Reuters)
On January 22, 2005, Al-Ragraki played his first official match with the club on the grounds of the Camp Nou against FC Barcelona, which included Brazilian stars Ronaldinho Gaucho and Cameroonian Samuel Eto'o.
After that, Regragui suffered from repeated injuries, and he only officially played 9 league matches and one match in the Spanish Cup during the 2005-2006 season, and thus lost his membership in the Racing Santander team.
After the end of his contract with Racing Santander in 2007, Walid Regragui returned to France from the gate of the Dijon team, with which he signed for one season.
On September 25, 2007, Rekragui signed a new contract with Grenoble for 3 seasons.
On October 4, 2007, he played his first match with the team against Libourne, under the leadership of coach Misha Baydarevich.
On September 14, 2010, Walid signed a contract with Flory Merogis club, which plays in the honorary amateur division, and played for it 3 seasons, before ending his football career at the age of 36.
Regragui (left) during his introduction by the President of the Moroccan Football Federation as coach of the Moroccan national team (Moroccan Press)
Jobs and responsibilities
Before becoming a coach for the Moroccan national football team, Rekragui held the position of assistant coach in September 2012, when Moroccan coach Rachid Taoussi decided to include him in his technical team when the latter was coach of the Atlas Lions.
Regragui held this position until October 2013, after the Moroccan national team failed to qualify for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
After his experience as an assistant coach with Rachid Taoussi, Regraki took over the training of the Moroccan capital, Al-Fateh Sports Club, Rabat, from June 2014 to the end of 2019 in his first experience as a coach, which is an exceptional period in a country where the phenomenon of changing coaches prevails after a short period during which he won the Throne Cup title. In 2014, the Moroccan Professional League Championship in 2016, and the title of best coach during the same year.
Immediately after that, he moved to the Qatar Stars League to train Al-Duhail between January and October 2020, where he won the league title with the Qatari club.
In August 2021, Regraki signed a new contract for a period of one year to coach the Moroccan sports team, Wydad, to succeed Tunisian coach Fawzi Benzarti, the year in which he won the African Champions League title when he defeated the Egyptian Al-Ahly team with two clean goals in the final match, and the title of the Moroccan professional league championship after He tied it in the last round of the league with Mouloudia Oujda with two goals for the same, and played the final of the Throne Cup, which it lost when it was defeated by penalty shootouts against Nahdet Berkane.
On the tenth of July 2022, Regragui won the best coach award in the Moroccan professional championship awarded by the Moroccan Football Federation, and on July 20, 2022 he was nominated by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) among the top 3 coaches in the world. The African continent at the CAF Awards Ceremony alongside Senegalese coach Elio Cisse and Portuguese Carlos Queiroz, who was coaching the Egyptian national team, an award won by Senegalese coach Elio Cisse.
On August 31, 2022, Walid Regraki was presented as the first coach of the Moroccan national football team by the President of the Moroccan Football Federation, Fawzi Lakjaa, with a contract that extends until June 30, 2025, with a monthly salary of 60,000 euros, during a press conference at the Mohammed VI Sports Complex in Rabat. To succeed Bosnian coach Vahid Halilodzic, less than 3 months before the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
Thus, Walid Regraki became the 14th Moroccan coach to train the Atlas Lions since 1957, and marked a distinguished participation in the World Cup in Qatar, as he became the first Arab coach to pass to the second round in the World Cup.
Al-Rakraki finished the first round of the World Cup with a 0-0 draw with Croatia (runner-up in the World Cup in 2018), a 2-0 victory over Belgium (second in the FIFA world ranking and third in the 2018 World Cup) and a 2-1 victory over Canada, and the accounts struck him with Spain in the price role.
Certificates and awards
Al-Rakraki holds:
CAF A or CAF Pro training certificate.
Baccalaureate degree (scientific stream).
DEUG General University Diploma in Economics and Social Sciences.
In addition, Regragui speaks 4 languages fluently: French, Arabic, English and Spanish, and therefore he is considered a man of communication par excellence, which facilitates the process of understanding with his players and his control over the management of the dressing room.
He also received the following awards and titles:
When he was a player:
French League Champion, second division, with Ajaccio in 2002.
Runner-up of the African Cup of Nations with the Moroccan national team in 2004.
Best defender in the French second division in 2002.
Best defender in the African Cup of Nations in 2004.
Best Moroccan defender in 2007.
Best player in the history of Fleury Merogis in 2011.
During his tenure as coach:
Throne Cup with Al-Fateh Sports Club Rabat in 2014.
Moroccan Professional League Championship with Al-Fateh Sports Club, Rabat in 2016.
Qatar Stars League Championship with Al-Duhail Club in 2020.
Moroccan Professional League Championship with Wydad Athletic Club Casablanca in 2022.
The African Champions League title with Wydad Casablanca in 2022.
Runner-up of the Throne Cup with Wydad Casablanca in 2022.
"Mars D'or" award for the best Moroccan coach for the years 2014 and 2015.
The "Tournament" award for the best Moroccan coach for the years 2016 and 2022.
The Moroccan Football Federation Award for Best Coach in 2022. He
was chosen for the Confederation of African Football Awards “CAF” among the best 3 coaches in Africa in 2022.