Two things you can’t take away from Hakim Ziyech as a child, the bicycle and the ball. He was a skinny kid obsessed with wearing shirts that were bigger than him. She lost control of his life during a difficult period, but someone close to him turned him into a world of celebrity, to make history with the Moroccan national team in the 2022 World Cup finals.
The Moroccan national team is preparing for an important confrontation on Wednesday when they meet the French national team at the Al-Bayt Stadium in Qatar in the semi-finals of the World Cup.
The Moroccan full-back and Chelsea player has made his mark with his country, with his brilliance in past games, and perhaps the tough fights he fought weren’t the hardest moments of his life, which are completely different now than to 19 years ago .
The beginning is in the Netherlands
Ziyash was born on March 19, 1993, in the Dutch city of Dronten, to parents whose ancestry dates back to the city of Tafogalt, in the Berkane region of Morocco, and is the youngest of nine children.
The Morocco talent loved football from an early age and his father was always there by his side during his beginnings in the Real Drontin team.
The difficulty of life
Ziash’s life soon became more difficult, when her father suffered from multiple sclerosis, according to the British “Daily Mail”, which quoted her statements about that period, saying: My father was destroyed by this disease, he could not walk, eat and talk, and had previously been injured, had a heart attack, worked hard, and smoked a lot.
He added: The worst happened in December 2013, I remember that day well, it was winter, my father was in bed, he had been ill for some time, and that night he asked me to sleep, but I wanted to stay with him, in the end I slept with him on the edge of his bed.
Ziyash continued: Around midnight I woke up and went upstairs to my bedroom. A few hours later, around three in the morning, I heard family members crying downstairs. I went to the living room. My father died when I was a ten year old boy.
Ziyash was deeply affected by his father’s death, and said in his interview with the Dutch newspaper “De Volskrant”, reported by the “Daily Mail”: after that I didn’t go to school, football was not important to me.
And the British newspaper added: After his father’s death, Ziyash went completely off track, he drank, smoked and dealt drugs, a person who worked in the youth category in Dronten helped him as much as possible to keep him away from this bad path, at the time he was his teacher, father and coach.
Ziech teacher
The person who helped Ziyash, Aziz Zulfiqar, was a Moroccan footballer who was one of the first players to play professionally in the Netherlands, who later denied that Ziyash drank and smoked, saying: He had some problems in his childhood, but he did not smoke and drink during his childhood.
He added in his statements: Ziyash is my friend and brother, and he was like my little son, I have accompanied him since he was 11 years old, after his father died.
Zulfiqar explained that Ziyash grew up in a poor family and was under severe shock after his father’s death, but managed to get Ziyash out of shock and bring him back to training.
And he continued: “When I first saw him, I immediately thought he was going to be a great player, and it was important that he had someone older than him who could talk to him and advise him. He was lost and wanted to leave.” I tried to bring him back to the right path and became like a father to him.
his bike
He knew the Moroccan national team star, his love for football and his bicycle when he was young, he used it all the time, went shopping and went out with friends, showed it to boys and girls, and Zulfiqar added : You can remove everything in Ziyech, except the ball and the bike.
Youth Holland
At international level, Ziyech was called up to the Netherlands U20 national team for the first time in 2013 and played 7 games for the Netherlands Under 19, Under 20 and Under 21, scoring 3 goals.
Badou Zaki, the former Morocco coach, was the first to call up Ziyash when he was a star at Twente Enschede, Netherlands, and at that time the player resisted pressure to represent the Netherlands, so Marco van Basten, the Netherlands manager at the time described his decision as “naive”.
Ziyash surprised everyone after being a key player in the Netherlands under-21 squad before choosing to represent Morocco, which prompted legend Van Basten to lash out at him, but fate would have it for Ziyash to lead his new squad to qualify for the the 2018 World Cup and the Netherlands would fail to go up.
Ziyash said at the time: When I preferred Morocco to Holland, they said I was a finished player who had no use for me, and the boos accompanied me everywhere. Happy to wear the shirt of Morocco and the Dutch national team it doesn’t mean anything to me anymore, I chose with my heart.
He has 48 international matches with the ‘Atlas Lions’, and could have missed the current World Cup due to disagreements with former coach Wahid Khalilozic, who was sacked and later appointed Walid Rakraki, who managed to bring back Ziyash in national list.
donation
Moroccan media sources said Ziyech has donated every dollar he has received since his first appearance for his country’s national team in 2015 to benefit poor families in Morocco.
