Former footballer Hasna Doumi has fulfilled her dream of becoming the first woman to coach a men's team in Morocco, convinced that "women can achieve anything, they should only have the opportunity".

Since last March, the 29-year-old coach has been supervising the training of Al-Ittihad Sports Club in the city of Fakih Bensalah (center), which is participating in the second section of the amateur championship.

In a playful atmosphere, Hasnaa instructs her players on a modest stadium wearing a black jacket and sports hat and using a whistle.

"It's an honour to be the first coach of a men's team in Morocco, it's also a pride for me and my parents, who have always supported me," she told AFP after the training.

In a society still conservative, Hasna hopes that her assumption of this position will serve as a message expressing her conviction that "women have the same competencies as men, they should only be given the opportunity and the necessary support."

Doumi: It is an honor for me to be the first coach of a men's team in Morocco (Anatolia)

Record

Her performance at the helm of the team is proof of this, as when she took over his coaching he was languishing in 13th place in the championship standings, which threatened to relegate him to a lower degree.

In this difficult situation, she "had big concerns" when club officials suggested that he "was at the bottom of the standings, and it was like a ticking time bomb," she says.

But she managed to win the bet, and the team under her leadership achieved 7 wins, two draws and 23 points, and "this is a record in the amateur section", as the club's technical director Abdul Rahim Al-Khadimi points out.

"Hasna sailed the team's ship to safety, achieving survival in the second division" of the amateur championship, and the team finished the season in the middle of the standings.

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Hasna Al-Domi. Morocco's first female coach of men's football

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The players are relieved to put the team under Hasna, although her appointment as their coach "came as a surprise" at first, says captain Abdelhadi Banan.

"I arrived at a sensitive moment, but we worked hand in hand and were able to overcome difficulties."

Banan describes Hasna as "having a strong personality, good listening", stressing that being a woman "eventually led many to change their outlook", although in his personal opinion "there is no difference between a woman and a man".

Despite her young age, Hasna has accumulated a busy sports career, having previously coached local teams for females and others for the junior groups, before taking over the task of helping the coach of Olympic Fakih Bensalah, who is also involved in one of the amateur divisions.

Prior to that, she had played for several clubs in the Women's Championship Division I since 2009.

Hasna sees her ideal model in both coaches Guardiola and Regraki (Anatolia)

Discriminatory suspicions

After I realized my dream of playing football, "which I have loved in my heart since childhood", I wanted to go on a coaching adventure, "so I could stay close to the stadiums," she says.

In parallel with the training, Hasna is a sports teacher at a secondary school in the city of Fakih Bensalah.

Hasnaa sees her ideal role model in both the famous Spanish coach Pep Guardiola and Moroccan Walid Regraki, who shone when he led the Atlas Lions to the semi-finals of the Qatar 2022 World Cup.

But she also doesn't forget Moroccan coach Lamia Boumehdi, who coaches the women's team of Congolese club TP Mazembe.

Hasna's experience was celebrated in the local media, but it also provokes some reactions, and about this aspect of her work, she says, "No one dares to criticize me in reality, but sometimes on social media some people launch behind the screens criticism and insults, it is the vacuum that generates violence, but I don't care."

"The only difficulty for me is the view that football is a matter for men," she says, but she nevertheless believes that "things are moving" positively, especially in the midst of the passion generated by the Atlas Lions saga in recent World Cup.

"I noticed that an increasing number of women want to play football."

"If you have a goal, you just have to fight to reach it, and you will achieve it with desire and determination."