Moroccan Hakim Ziyech...the player who listened to his red blood and abandoned the Dutch national team
A Moroccan football player, born in the Netherlands in 1993, who chose to play for the Atlas Lions. His father died at an early age and he suffered in his childhood, before he found his way to brilliance after his mother’s desperation and the advice and help of his first coach.
Hakim Ziyech - who is called the "Moroccan Magician" - played football in the streets, and there he discovered his talent early. Then he began his sports career in 2001 through the Dutch club Real Dronten. He progressed through many teams there, until he moved to “Ajax Amsterdam” in 2016, then “Chelsea”, for which he has been playing since July 2020.
The 29-year-old son lived a difficult childhood after the death of his father, and during his adolescence he turned to drug addiction. Then he overcame difficult crises in his life, and became a star, and one of the best players in his position in Europe.
The distinguished left-footed player was called the “Moroccan Jewel” and was classified as the best Arab playmaker, but he said, “I am not the biggest star. I am just doing my job on the field and trying to do the best for my country.”
The spaghetti lover has no rituals before matches, he just wears earplugs to calm down. When the Moroccan national anthem is played, he “looks down, tries to be focused and feels those screams coming from the crowd,” according to one of his statements.
After the crises he experienced, the Qatar World Cup is the window through which Ziyech broke into the football scene again. This came after he attracted attention in Doha with his combative play and his precise and decisive passes.
Birth and upbringing
Hakim Ziyech was born into a poor family, on March 19, 1993 in the town of Dronten in the Netherlands. He was the youngest of his nine siblings of Moroccan parents, hailing from the town of Tafogalt, near the city of Berkane in eastern Morocco. They had immigrated to the Netherlands in 1967, in search of better living conditions.
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Ziyech holds Dutch and Moroccan citizenship, and also speaks Arabic, French, Dutch, and English. He is known for a few interests and hobbies, one of which is playing billiards, and he is known to rush to sleep whenever he feels the need to relieve stress.
He also greatly appreciates that his sister is his biggest fan in his family, and he owes credit to his mother, who stood up when he won the Best Player in the Dutch League award, in the middle of the ceremony hall, and said about her, “This is my mother, she is the real hero, not me... She is everything to me.” If it were not for her, I would not have stood before you today, so please salute her because she is the one who led me here to stand before you.”
A rough childhood and addiction
At the age of ten, Hakim Ziyech suffered a psychological crisis, after the death of his father, Mohamed Ziyech, due to multiple sclerosis on December 23, 2003. He told of that moment, saying, “I wanted to stay with him and did not go to bed until midnight,” and “After hours "I woke up and heard my family crying and went downstairs, where my father was dead."
His mother was fighting to support the family with family benefits and unemployment benefits. Their suffering continued when two of his brothers were imprisoned on charges of theft and assault. While Hakim was the hope of the family, his father's early death affected his behavior negatively, as he stumbled in his studies and stopped playing football at the age of 12. He also became aggressive and addicted to drugs and alcohol in a way that almost destroyed his life and ended his football career early.
The Moroccan star and his former coach, Aziz Doufikar, was the one who succeeded in getting him out of addiction, and Hakim Ziyech considers him like a substitute father to him, and he attributed that suffering to what he has achieved now.
An early love of football
At the age of five, Ziyech's football talent appeared when he was playing with his brothers in the streets. Cruyff Court witnessed matches between the neighborhood's residents.
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He said about that period, "I was playing ball against people who were older than me, and they would not accept losing. Rather, they would keep kicking you. These things make you more resilient and give you a mentality that helps you face difficulties in the future."
He told in press interviews that he used his left foot for the first time to kick friends who were fighting with his older brother, called “Fawzi,” as a joke, and he intervened, believing that there was a problem between them, so he went towards them and hit them to protect his brother.
His brother discovered that his future was in football, so he brought him a ball and told him, “Take it and make it your friend.” At the age of seven, Ziyech’s football career began when he joined a small club (Heerenveen) in the city of Real Dronten in 2001,