Breaking down Ayyoub Bouaddi’s midfield masterclass for Morocco against Brazil – The Athletic
The ball was still travelling towards Ayyoub Bouaddi when he started clapping.
The 18-year-old midfielder was applauding the pass played by team-mate Chadi Riad in the 87th minute of Morocco’s entertaining 1-1 draw with Brazil in both nations’ World Cup group-stage opener on Saturday.
Supportive gestures have their place in soccer. Warm applause, hearty back-slaps and approving thumbs-up are generally saved for breaks in play, though, or at least offered from a safe distance.
These niceties take a back seat when there are more pressing on-field matters at hand, such as controlling a pass that is still rolling towards you in your own third, late on in a finely balanced game in the biggest tournament on the planet. Bouaddi, though, knew he had the time and space to raise both arms and clap Riad before taking a touch.
It was a moment that neatly captured his supremely confident performance at MetLife Stadium yesterday; a display worthy of its own standing ovation.
Precocious talents often light up World Cups, but rarely do so from central midfield.
The conventional wisdom is that players operating there need time to develop physically, as well as to master the understanding required to dictate play from the middle. On the physical front, there are no issues. Bouaddi is a lean 6ft 1in (185cm) athlete with a relentless engine, and he was one of the few players not wilting late on under the baking late-afternoon sun in New Jersey.
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That his game intelligence belies his tender years is perhaps unsurprising given his academic background. He is studying for a degree in mathematics, and it is clear that geometry is a strong suit, given his instinctive understanding of space and where to position himself.
Trusting this spatial awareness, head coach Mohamed Ouahbi afforded Bouaddi licence to roam, confident he would know when to plug gaps and when to offer himself. He was constantly available to his team-mates, with no Morocco player recording more than his 87 touches.
The touchmap below shows that a healthy chunk of these came in the right-hand channel of the attacking third. With Morocco’s most influential player, Achraf Hakimi, operating down that side, the North Africans targeted 47 per cent of their attacks down that flank, and Bouaddi drifted across to help create overloads and free up the Paris Saint-Germain right-back.
Along with his neat interplay, Bouaddi’s surging long dribbles forward stood out, helping Morocco drive upfield and slice through a Brazil midfield that was hopelessly disorganised in the first half.
He completed 53 carries across the course of the game — 15 more than the next-most among the Moroccan players, by attacking midfielder Azzedine Ounahi — with the example below from a move Bouaddi started on the edge of his own box.
But it was off the ball where Bouaddi really shone, helping drive the aggressive press that caught a sluggish Brazil side cold.
Here he is setting that tone from the off, pressuring Casemiro inside the first minute of the game, and was regularly stationed high up the pitch in those early exchanges despite his nominally defensive midfield role.
Not that he shirked the more traditional, gritty elements associated with that position. Far from it. He snapped into hard challenges and battled tenaciously for second balls.
At club level, Bouaddi plays for French top-flight side Lille and, despite beginning last season as a 17-year-old, he relished the physical side of the game.
His pizza chart from The Athletic below, which compares players using bespoke metrics, shows that Bouaddi ranked in the 92nd percentile for loose-ball recoveries among midfielders in Europe’s top five leagues (meaning only eight per cent did better than him). He played 2,329 league minutes, fourth most of any teenager in Europe’s top five domestic leagues — a testament to his durability despite such a combative style.
Morocco did start to flag yesterday following their breathtaking start, recording just two touches in Brazil’s box after half-time, compared with 11 before it, as their opponents increasingly took control of possession. But with Bouaddi’s unflappable composure at the heart of midfield, they never looked under serious threat, maintaining a disciplined defensive shape throughout.
This calmness also helped shrug off Brazilian efforts to press in the final third, with Bouaddi repeatedly wriggling free when under duress.
Below, despite being hounded in his own box, back to goal, by Brazil’s star player and scorer Vinicius Junior, the teenager serenely shoulders the Real Madrid winger aside and plays the ball back to goalkeeper Yassine Bounou.
Bounou then lofts a slow pass back to him on the edge of the box, a questionable decision that leaves Bouaddi needing the perfect touch to evade Vinicius Jr. Once again, his control is note-perfect, allowing him to win a foul and escape the danger.
This was a remarkably assured midfield performance on the sport’s biggest stage, one that is sure to attract the attention of elite clubs across Europe.
Transfer speculation can wait, though, as Bouaddi’s mind is solely on helping Morocco achieve glory at this tournament.
“For the moment, I am only focused on the World Cup and I cannot answer to this right now,” he told The Athletic’s David Ornstein after the match. “Of course, I’m really happy to know that some clubs are interested in me. But, for now, I’m only focused on the World Cup with Morocco and we will try to give everything to do our best.”
That was a mature response, and Bouaddi’s academic gifts also extend to eloquence. In 2023, he won a public-speaking competition contested by players from professional academies across France.
On Saturday night in New Jersey, he did his talking on the pitch.
