Back again, just finished a really great program sponsored by the US Embassy. I brought over a US girls mixed U-15,16,17 team from Bethesda Maryland (Bethesda Soccer Club, http://www.bethesdasoccer.org/) and we did a huge tour around Morocco. It was a mix of tournaments, games and clinics as well as a round table discussion and a somewhat interesting press conference.
The goal of the program (officially) was to provide an exchange opportunity, allowing American girls to get a glimpse of and experience women's football in Morocco and Moroccan girls to do the same with women's football in America. My personal goal for this program was to give them Moroccan teams a chance to play an American girls team and through the press and attention, highlight and increase the importance of Moroccan women's football. I think that happened (maybe not as much as I would have hoped but more than I expected, if that makes any sense). We had some great press coverage, all over the big TV stations as well as satellite arab TV (thanks to Reuters TV). We were in arabic and french papers as well. The tournament in Casablanca (our first stop on the tour) with Wydad, Berrchid and Sidi Moumen went really well, and was very well attended. Most of the Casablanca women's football scene was there, including the regional president of the women's league from the Federation (which for me really means nothing but added to the importance of the event just by his attendance at the press conference). There were a lot of other people there, faces I see often at games, at Federation conferences, opportunists, names I don't remember. I didn't thank really any of them and they right it off as me being a foreigner who doesn't understand proper etiquette. Little do they know that it is really just because I don't know
their names and have a rule that a "thank you" in front of the press from me requires you actually having done something related to the program.
My Sidi Moumen girls from the Cultural Center came and we played around during half time on the turf grass that Wydad just built (this was the first time these young girls ever played on any sort of surface other than dirt, rock, broken glass mixture they are used to near the center).
After Casa we traveled to Amzmiz and held clinics in Amzmiz with Sana and her group. Of course we had an amazing welcome, the group of boys and girls were there. We didn't get as many young girls (because it was ridiculously hot, summer, and many parents didn't want their daughters outside), but eventually we had enough girls and added some curious boys and did a good hour and a half of drills and games.
After Amzmiz was Fes (we played Abdi's team from Khenifra) and then had an amazing program in Oujda. The clinics went way better (partly because now the american girls knew what they were doing and partly because we had way more little girls and a nice field with equipment). Then we did the round table and then the game at night. It felt good to be in Oujda just because there are some really great girls there, and no league for them to play in. Oujda is a border/frontier town right next to Algeria in the north east. It apparently was a a bustling economic hub when the border was open but now is sort of a dead zone and just really far from all other Moroccan economic and social hubs. This also makes it hard for the girls team to enter the league. Not enough teams around them to start a regional league and too far to be affordable to travel and play in the other regions. So they are just stuck, traveling and guest playing with other teams but eventually, will have to give it up, get married and have nice memories of playing a game they loved.
After Oujda we finished up in Sale against a sort of national select team, Bahia's doing. Bahia is a great force in women's football and I think, of all the women and even men I have met in the domain, has good intentions rather than wanting a political post or some sort of money. We will see.
We had the ambassador come as well as the Mayor of Sale, lots of media again, and a nice reception.
Not the most sustainable of programs and a lot of money dished out by the embassy for just one week but I also would not have done it if I hadn't thought that the impact on women's football in Morocco would be big. I think it was. Hopefully through this team from Bethesda we can continue contact and get some donations to the teams and programs here. Maybe there are other ways for collaborations. Will continue thinking of things.
My next project is grassroots coaching training for women mostly. Still int he planning stages and looking for money of course.
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