In November 2018, Double Pass went to work on the African continent for the first time in its history as partner of the Royal Moroccan Football Federation. The assignment has 2 different angles; a review of the federation itself, together with the functioning of the national youth teams and an assessment of the talent development system of all 16 clubs of the first division “Botola Pro”.
Football Consultants Ariël Jacobs and Jo Van Hoecke were the first to start on Moroccan soil. It soon became apparent that Moroccan football has a lot of potential, which has not been sufficiently developed yet. In short, an ideal working environment for the services of Double Pass.
From December 2018 to April 2019 a team of 6 assessors, consisting of Kris Collaert, Davy Verbeeck, Jean-François de Sart, Raf de Koninck, Ariel Jacobs, Ruben Lucker and Ibtissam Bouharat, set to work for the organization of the 16 club scans . Every week, two clubs were visited for a 2 days assessment. Quite a challenging assignment given the surface of the country and the distribution of the clubs.
During a scan our consultants perform a complete screening of the organizational capacity and set-up of how talent is being developed. It includes many different processes and football specific topics. In this way Double Pass gets a clear view of the situation “as is”.
Morocco is known for its beautiful landscapes, its hospitality and its technically gifted players. We can without a doubt conclude that we have not been disappointed after our introduction to the Moroccan football landscape. Our team has been stunned by the diversity between mountain and sea more than once and the clubs have always done their best to receive our consultants in an excellent way.
In terms of youth education, Morocco is not a world leader, but the potential of the players we met in the clubs is enormous. Double Pass sees a lot of tactical challenges after the assessment project, but technical football is undoubtedly part of the DNA of the Moroccan.
Finally, post scan talks took place in May for all the clubs involved. The reports were thorough, still the reactions of the clubs to the project team, the scans, the reports and a possible follow-up process were extremely positive.
A detailed overview report with results of all assessed clubs on all different dimensions of our model, was presented to the Royal Moroccan Football Federation.
Double Pass looks back at a satisfying, exciting and challenging first experience on the African continent.
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