Seventy-eight caps, and now a line in the sand
Instagram, late on a Tuesday night. That is where Sofyan Amrabat chose to end, for now, a Morocco career that stretches to 78 appearances. The Ajax midfielder will not play for the Atlas Lions again while Mohamed Ouahbi is head coach.
“This was a very difficult decision to make, but I no longer feel able to represent the national team under the current coach,” the 30-year-old wrote.
The door is ajar, not shut. “So I have decided to make myself unavailable for selection for as long as he stays in post. I want to be clear: I am not retiring from international football and I am not closing the door on a return with Morocco.”
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He said why he was leaving, not what pushed him
No reasons given. “Out of respect for the national team and everyone involved, I would rather keep private the reasons behind this decision.”
The backdrop fills in some of the blanks anyway. At the 2026 World Cup the former Fiorentina man spent most of the tournament watching from the bench, a long fall from the job he had four years earlier.
The man who ran the 2022 midfield
Morocco’s run to the semi-finals in 2022, the first by an African nation, was built on legs like his. Amrabat covered the ground nobody else wanted to cover.
Ouahbi now starts a new cycle without him. That is a real hole in central midfield, and it opens at exactly the moment a squad is being rebuilt. Amrabat stays at Ajax, where his career has settled again after difficult spells in Italy and England.
The Royal Moroccan Football Federation stayed silent through the evening.
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