Morocco has turned to Mohamed Ouahbi for World Cup 2026, replacing Walid Regragui in March and putting a coach with youth success in charge of a team expected to compete from the first whistle. Ouahbi now has only weeks to settle his ideas before Morocco opens against Brazil in New York on 13 June.
That timing is why his appointment matters now. Morocco reached the semi-finals of a World Cup for the first time at Qatar 2022, and it arrives in North America ranked eighth in the world. The squad also carries sharper recent form, having drawn 1-1 with Ecuador and beaten Paraguay 2-1 in late March, results that offered a first glimpse of how the new coach may handle a side entering the tournament with real ambition. For readers tracking the world cup 2026 buildup, Morocco is one of the teams that has already changed its shape before the tournament even starts.
Ouahbi is not an unknown quantity inside Moroccan football. He took charge of the Under-20 team in 2022 and led it to a maiden Under-20 World Cup title in Chile last year. He has said he was not fully comfortable speaking in front of groups when he first started teaching, and that MFB helped him impose himself and discover the job of a coach. His preferred 4-2-3-1 can also shift into a 4-2-2-2, a flexibility Morocco may need with Scotland waiting in Boston on 19 June and Haiti in Atlanta on 24 June.
The challenge is not only tactical. Morocco enters this cycle with memory as well as momentum, and the national team’s recent history still carries a bruise. In January, Senegal’s players walked off in protest over a penalty awarded to Morocco in the Afcon final, Brahim Díaz then missed his Panenka after a long delay, and Senegal won 1-0 on the field before Caf later awarded the title to Morocco two months on. Senegal have since appealed to the court of arbitration for sport, a dispute that sits uneasily beside Morocco’s attempt to project calm and continuity.
Ouahbi has framed his job in the language of restraint and duty, saying he is aware of the expectations but honoured, and committed to seriousness, humility, determination and patriotism. That will be tested immediately. Brazil is next, and with limited time to absorb a new coach’s methods, Morocco’s opening match may tell the clearest story about whether a team that reached a World Cup semi-final for the first time can carry that standard into a tougher stage.
