The Spanish-Moroccan player, after several months of dispute with CAS and FIFA, will make his debut with the North African national team on Friday

Munir El Haddadi, por fin con Marruecos

AFP/CRISTINA QUICLER - Sevilla's Spanish striker Munir El Haddadi celebrates a goal

Jorge Fernández Arribas

25 de marzo de 2021 (14:35 h.)

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Morocco will play against Mauritania on March 26 in Nouakchott (20:00) and on March 30 against Burundi in Rabat (20:00).

The Atlas Lions top their group with 10 points followed by Mauritania with 5, Burundi with 4 and bottom of the group is the Central African Republic with 3.

In 2017, Munir started the paperwork to be able to play for Morocco. In October it seemed that everything was authorised and he was called up, but the CAS (The Court of Arbitration for Sport) ruled that he could not play. Then in January, he finally received permission and was once again called up by coach Vahid Halilhodzic.

Halilhodzic has made headlines because he does not accept that called-up players miss out on the squad. He said they should give priority to their country's call-up, instead of being influenced by pressure hidden under an alleged health measure.

The Moroccan coach is aware he has a great team and that they have a chance to win the African crown.

Along with Cameroon, Algeria, Egypt, Côte d'Ivoire and Nigeria, they are among the teams that should reach the quarter-finals, at the very least, and why not the final.

Munir will be joined by club teammates Yassine Bono and Youssef En-Nesyri. But the squad is full of great players. In addition to the aforementioned, the big star is Chelsea FC's Hakim Ziyech, with former Real Madrid full-back Achraf Hakimi, currently with Inter, Fiorentina's Soufiane Amrabat and Youssef El Arabi, currently with Olympiacos.

The squad includes goalkeepers Yassine Bounou (Sevilla FC), Mounir El Kajoui (Hataysport) and Anas Zniti (Raja Casablanca).

The defenders are Soufiane Chakla (Getafe), Ghanem Saiss (Wolverhampton), Zouhair Feddal (Sporting Lisbon) and Nayef Aguerd (Stade Rennais), Achraf Hakimi (Inter Milan), Issam Chebake (Yeni Malatyasport), Nabil Dirar (Club Brugge), Adam Massina (Watford).

The midfielders selected are Soufiane Amrabat (Fiorentina), Yahya Jabrane (Wydad Casablanca), Aymane (Frankfurt), Oussama Tannane (Vitesse Arnhem), Selim Amallah (Stadard Liège) and Adel Taarabt (Benfica).

The forwards are Hakim Ziyech (Chelsea), Zakaria Boukhlal (Az Alkamaar), Soufiane Rahimi (Raja Casablanca), Youssef El Arabi (Olympiakos), Youssef En-Nesyri (Sevilla), Ayoub El Kaabi (Wydad Casablanca) and Munir El Haddadi (Sevilla).