Hussein Amouta, Jordanian national team coach, during a press conference before the final match of the 2024 Asian Cup (Getty)

A former Moroccan football player who started his career as a player and then a coach in Morocco and on the African and Asian scene. He won 9 titles with three different teams and with the Moroccan national team. He trained a group of distinguished players, the most famous of whom are Spaniards Raul Gonzalez and Xavi Hernandez.

Birth and upbringing

Hussein Amouta was born on October 24, 1969, in the city of Khemisset, 78 kilometers west of the Moroccan capital, Rabat.

His father was loyal to an authentic culture among some Moroccan families in naming children after their grandfathers to embody righteousness and respect, so he named him after his grandfather, as he said that the child was worthy of this name because he loved his calmness and discipline, as he was quiet, gentle, and shy, speaking little and not taking the initiative to speak.

He grew up in a humble family and a simple home. He grew up as an orphan, so his father took care of his upbringing. He has four brothers from his father and mother, and two other brothers from his father.

Amouta, whom many call “the pride of the city of Khemisset,” was known for his special relationship with his father, and the father never stops talking proudly about his son in his city, and praising his righteousness toward him.

Study and scientific training

Amouta received his initial education in public schools in his hometown, then he joined the First Royal Military Secondary School in the city of Kenitra, along with students from different social backgrounds, children of military personnel and others, after successfully passing the entrance exam.

His education during that period was according to an internal system in which he was subjected to strict discipline, wearing a uniform and military supervision, with only one day of rest, and he was allowed to practice football.

After obtaining high school, he changed his academic path at the will of his father, who saw that his physical structure was not compatible with continuing his studies in military training, so he joined the Al-Fateh Sports Club football school in Rabat, under conditions that guaranteed him academic achievement and sports training.

Al-Hussein Amouta (left) and Qatar national team coach Bartolomé Marquez pose for a photo with the Asian Cup on February 9, 2024 (Associated Press)

He obtained a master's diploma in 1994 from the Moulay Rachid National Institute for the Training of Sports Executives in Salé, specializing in coaching. Among his study companions was Said Chiba, who later became a coach for the Moroccan national team under 17 years of age.

He passed with distinction a training course organized by the International Olympic Committee, and was the first Moroccan to take first place in his class.

He began his first steps toward his doctorate at the Faculty of Sciences and Technologies in Beni Mellal, affiliated with Sultan Moulay Slimane University, and is anticipating the defense of his thesis on the topic “The relationship between the sports performance of players and psychological, social, and mental preparations.”

Football career

Al-Hussein started playing football in the streets of the neighborhood where he lived since he was young, and his football talent appeared when he was in the First Royal Military Secondary School.

It was said that he participated for the first time with the second team, which represented the secondary school in a school tournament held in 1981 in Agadir, under the leadership of a coach named Nader El Sayed El Mahdaoui.

Amouta loved studying and achieving education, and his love of sports was one of his favorite interests, but he did not like to choose it as a career in the 1990s, as he preferred to get a job in the army.

Al-Hussein's father did not approve of his son's choice. He later reconciled with the fact that he could excel at playing football, and pushed him to develop his talent at Al-Fateh Sports School.

His football career officially began in 1988, and he was a midfielder in the Ittihad Zemmouri team of Khemisset. He showed his qualifications and moved in 1990 to the ranks of Fath Rabat in an experience that lasted 6 years, during which he contributed to winning the Moroccan League championship in 1993 and 1994. He also won the title of top scorer. Championship.

He moved from the Moroccan League in his first professional experience, to the Saudi club Al-Riyadh for only one season. Then he moved to Al-Sadd of Qatar in 1997, where he won the league and the top scorer title, in addition to the Prince Cup and the Crown Prince Cup in his second season.

Four years later, he moved on a new adventure to the UAE League with Sharjah Club, before returning to Qatar’s Al-Sadd again in 2002, under a loan contract. Then he returned to his original club in the city of Khemisset in 2003, where he concluded his playing career.

Football experience with the national team

Ibn Khemisset carried the Moroccan national team jersey on only 5 occasions, between 1991 and 1994, during which he scored one goal. His first appearance was on September 2, 1990, during the 1992 African Cup of Nations qualifiers, in the match that ended with Morocco’s victory over Mauritania with a score of 4-0.

He played two friendly matches with the Atlas Lions, and one match in the 1994 African Cup of Nations qualifiers. He was part of the under-23 team at the Olympic Games held in the Spanish city of Barcelona in 1992, and played in the second match against Sweden.

Amouta is considered one of four Moroccan coaches who coached the Atlas Lions in the last three matches of the World Cup and African Nations Cup qualifiers in 2010, succeeding Frenchman Roger Lemerre. At that time, he did not have much experience in the field of coaching.

He later stated that he received an offer from the Moroccan Football Federation in 2014, to be a second coach for either the Italian Trapattoni or the Dutch Advocaat, on the basis that he would coach the national team within the framework of continuity.

But things went the opposite at the last minute, and the national coach, Badou Zaki, was hired, but that did not make him lose hope of coaching the first team one day.

He was appointed coach of the local team for under 23 years in December 2019, and he won the African Cup of Nations championship with him with 15 goals in 2020. He also led them in the Arab Cup in 2021, and the process stopped at that time in the quarter-finals.

Amouta left the local team in 2022, even though he was scheduled to participate in the African Cup for local teams, as well as in a special edition of the African Cup that qualifies for the 2024 Olympic Games. The dream of supervising the training of the first team remained postponed until another time, after Amouta also apologized. He announced the mission in the Qatar 2022 World Cup, because he was not ready for a bet of this size.

Hussein Amouta gives instructions to the players during the quarter-final match of the Asian Football Cup in Qatar 2023 (French)

From stadiums to training

What distinguished Amouta’s path was that he coached teams in which he played, had good attendance and won titles. He began coaching his club, Ittihad Khemisset, for juniors, in 2003, then became coach of the adult team in the 2007-2008 season, with whom he achieved second place in the Moroccan League, which qualified him to participate in the African Champions League for the first time in its history.

The glory maker of Khemisset Club passed away after three successful seasons, after which its results deteriorated and it was relegated to the third division (amateur league) until 2024, a memory that hurts Amouta, who loves his small city near Rabat, where he began his career as a football player.

Between the years 2008 and 2011, he worked as a coach for his club Fath Rabat and brought it back to the circle of titles, as he led it to the Throne Cup final, then succeeded in winning its first championship locally, and at the African level, he achieved the African Confederation Cup title, and was the second Moroccan coach to win this title.

The story was repeated in his first coaching experience in the Qatari League, whose stadiums, competitions and atmosphere he knew well as a former player. In 2011, he became the sporting director of Al-Sadd Qatar, before he was appointed as a replacement for coach Jorge Fossati in 2012.

He succeeded in crowning Al-Zaeem with the Qatar Stars League title after an absence of five years, in addition to the Emir’s Cup and the Qatari Super Cup.

He contracted with Wydad Sports Club in January 2017 for a season and a half, and was the first team he coached without playing in its ranks, with which he won the Moroccan League title and secured a qualification ticket to the Club World Cup, after winning the African Champions League, which he missed. Quarter of a century.

He was the first Moroccan coach to achieve this achievement, as all the continental titles won by Moroccan teams were won by foreign coaches.

He was appointed coach again for Wydad, succeeding Walid Regragui, on August 18, 2022, and his coaching period ended at the beginning of December of the same year, with his dismissal after he traveled to Qatar as an invited guest to analyze the World Cup matches.

During the period between May and June 2023, he led the Royal Army Club as a technical supervisor in the remaining five matches of the league, because the laws of the Moroccan Federation prevent him from coaching two teams of the same level in the same season. He was able to win the Moroccan League title after a 15-year wait.

Hussein Amouta, Jordanian national team coach (right), and Abdullah Nassib, the national team player, during the 2023 Asian Cup semi-final match (Getty)

Jordanian glory maker in the Asian Cup

With his extensive experience as a winner of titles in a career spanning nearly 35 years as a player and coach for clubs, age group teams, and local teams, the Jordanian Federation contracted with him to begin his career in coaching the first “starchy” team.

On June 27, 2023, the Jordanian Federation announced its contract with the Moroccan coach to lead the national team for three years in continental and international competitions, most notably the 2026 World Cup qualifiers and the 2024 Asian Cup finals in Qatar.

Only 6 months after Amouta - the 36th coach - took over the leadership of the Jordanian national team, his squad appeared in a different form and was able to overturn all expectations. Within 3 weeks, he reached the final with Musa Al-Taamari’s comrades for the first time in the history of their participation, after defeating South Korea with two clean goals in the semi-final. Final.

His players scored the opponents' net 12 times in six matches, achieving a distinguished journey in the history of Jordan's previous four matches, in which the offensive counter did not exceed the five-goal barrier.

Before this historic moment, in the first match, Al-Nashama defeated Malaysia 4-0, and they were a few seconds away from beating South Korea before they tied with an own goal 2-2. Then they lost to Bahrain (0-1) and came in third place in the group. Fifth.

In the eighth final against Iraq, he scored two goals in the final seconds to overturn his deficit to a difficult and historic victory (3-2).

In Jordan's third quarter-final in Asia after 2004 and 2011 with Egyptian Al-Gohary and Iraqi Adnan Hamad, Amouta went on to win again over Tajikistan with an unanswered goal, and qualified for the round of four for the first time in its history.

However, this past stage was preceded by turbulent beginnings that put him in the crosshairs of criticism, facing an audience demanding immediate results.

The "pressure lover", as he describes himself, was not convincing before the Asian Cup in his preparatory tests, which he lost successively, and his players scored five goals in eight matches and conceded 16 goals.

The heavy defeats were against Norway 0-6, and Japan 1-6, and it also obtained one point from two matches in the World Cup qualifiers.

Despite this, the man of the new era of Nashama remained armed with a vision and an insistence that stumbling in friendly matches is not a criterion, and that he only thinks about a human combination that gives the team tactical strength.

Man of the Finals and Sniper of titles

Amouta's football career tells us that he was the key to many closed doors in the face of titles sought by the clubs that he coached for a long time, as he was able to achieve victory in 9 of the 11 finals he played in his coaching career, whether in Morocco or abroad.

He won the African Cup of Nations with the Moroccan national team, the African Confederation Cup (Confederation) and the Throne Cup with Fath Rabat, and the African Champions League with Wydad Casablanca.

He also won the Qatar Stars League with Al-Sadd of Qatar, and the Emir’s Cup of the State of Qatar for two consecutive years, in addition to the Qatari Super Cup, and the Asian Champions League, as he was a technical director, while he missed out on the Crown Prince Cup and the Emir’s Cup.

The “finals man” - as some like to describe him - says that he now has special experience in managing finals matches, in which the team with the least mistakes is always the closest to winning.

His looks and facial features rarely change, in victory as well as in defeat, and he does not care about criticism. He often stated that he does not listen to the press and rarely follows it, and the man - who is nicknamed “The Frowning One” due to the few moments in which he smiles - is capable of abandoning his touch at any moment. Any player who finds himself undisciplined.

Source: Al Jazeera + websites