fifa.com
IFI you had told an Angers fan that, with their team struggling at the bottom of Ligue 1, two of their players would put in some of the best performances of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, they would have thought you were having them on.
It is fair to say 2022 has not been a good year for the club in western France. After 15 league matches, they have only managed to earn eight points and are on track to finish the season with just 20 points if things do not improve, which would be the lowest points total achieved in France’s top flight since Toulouse picked up just 13 in the 2019/20 season.
The situation has not always been so bad at Stade Raymond Kopa, named for their legendary former player. In 2015, the club were promoted to Ligue 1 after some 21 years in the lower leagues, and, since then, they have maintained their status with mid-table finishes.
In October 2020, five years after he left, Moroccan winger Sofiane Boufal, one of the club’s most successful players in recent years, decided to return to where his professional career began having picked up valuable experience at Lille, Southampton and Celta Vigo.
Boufal started his second stint at Angers slowly, making just 14 league appearances and scoring one goal in his first season. However, he burst back onto the scene the following season, which just happened to coincide with the arrival of his Moroccan team-mate, Azzedine Ounahi, who signed from Avranches in the third tier of French football.
Together, the pair led Angers to 14th in the league, with Boufal making 29 appearances, scoring eight goals and making five assists, and Ounahi, who was used in both defensive and attacking roles, made 32 appearances, scoring and assisting twice.
The duo left to join up with their national team-mates to prepare for Qatar after a poor start to the season which included a streak of seven losses in a row and led to Gerald Baticle’s removal from the head-coach position. Nevertheless, Boufal and Ounahi put all that behind them as they joined up with Walid Regragui’s squad who have gone on to make history.
Little known outside France, Ounahi has proved himself as a crucial part of Regragui’s midfield engine room, pressing opponents with remarkable effectiveness. In fact, the 21-year-old has performed over 100 more defensive pressing moves (321) than any other player still at the tournament, with his closest contender, Mateo Kovacic, having only carried out 206.
Boufal has earned praise for his ability to dodge past defenders and break down the left wing, providing Morocco with one of their most important weapons, which is all the more important given their reliance on quick transitions from defence to attack. In Qatar, only Kylian Mbappe has run past defenders with greater regularity than the Morocco winger.
The duo have had a month in Qatar to forget about their relegation battle in France, becoming stars around the world as part of a Morocco squad that has made history as the first African and Arab team to reach a World Cup semi-final.
The question now is whether they can take one last step before heading back to Angers for an altogether different challenge.
