By Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (September 27^th 2025)

While King Mohammed VI is rightly credited with being the architect of Morocco’s football renaissance, one of the men entrusted to deliver his vision is Nasser Larguet. Morocco’s Atlas Lions have only won the men’s Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) once and that was in a format that was quickly scrapped.

The King wanted to know why his country had only succeeded once and also what could be done about it. The review discovered that one of the problems was that the clubs, which up to that point were trusted to develop and nurture young players had a club versus country conflict. It was their responsibility to cater for the needs of the club – if that benefited country as well, that was great, but their primary purpose was to develop players to suit the needs of the club.

The review suggested a solution. Morocco needed an academy – complex really – that put the needs of the country first. If that benefited the clubs as well, that was fantastic. Work started on building the complex at Salé rapidly. Larguet was chosen to run it. I first met him while the finishing touches to the complex were still being applied. He explained how it was developed and how players to develop were identified and recruited. It bore fruit very quickly. By the World Cup of 2018 signs of its importance were obvious – four of its protégés were already Atlas Lions, including Youssef En-Nesyri.

In this interview Larguet explains his work for Morocco, which contributed to the Atlas Lions’ historic run to the last four in Qatar’s World Cup. He also details his current task in Saudi Arabia.

Nasser Larguet Interview (see below).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCGJ13Mr_n4