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One of our favorites on football, where legend, redemption and beautiful game come together to create Raja Casablanca, a team with a crazy history. We will reveal the secret of this club, capable of enchanting the whole world thanks to the quality put in place, almost “Brazilian”.
The workers’ club
Raja Casablanca was founded in 1949 by the Moroccan resistance, with the idea of giving a relief valve to their compatriots oppressed by the French. this is the reason for the name Raja, a word which in Arabic means “hope” and which renders the idea of the foundations very well. Not surprisingly, the founders refused in every way to see a European leading the club, trying to use a trick to escape the horrible imposition. As done by the British in Egypt, in fact, even here the colonists had imposed that every formation had a founder “of their part”, this to keep under control every possible act of subversion. Precisely for this reason, then, the club named Ben Abadji Hejji, an Algerian with French citizenship.
With independence, the Raja became one of the most popular teams in all of Morocco, turning into the favorite fun of many workers thanks to the beautiful game. The problem, however, was that however incredible and extraordinary it was, it led to few concrete results, at least until 1974. In that year, in fact, he will start winning, not stopping practically any more and in a very short time becoming one of the most successful teams in the whole African continent.
South American football on African soil
In a certain sense, these results were said to be only the consequence of a very long journey, started decades earlier with the legendary coach Père Jégo, stage name Mohamed Ben Lahcen Affani. To this figure, to say the least mystical, we will certainly dedicate an article in the future, his work, however, is fundamental to understand the soul of this team, unique in its kind. After being a key figure for the bitter rivals of Wydad Casablanca, Affani turned his attention to the green casawis, determined to revolutionize local football forever and leave his indelible mark on the history of the continent.
If with the reds, in fact, he had opted for an approach very similar to that adopted in European football, more physical and tactical, with Raja he chose the purest fun. He no longer cared about the results, he wanted a football made of technique and prestige games, something that followed the model of the Brazilian clubs that he had observed during his travels, the result was extraordinary. The greens became an absolute excellence in the world as regards quality and spectacle, so much so that, during the Club World Cup in Brazil, many were the cariocas who were enchanted by the Maghrebis, preferring them even to Del Bosque’s Real Madrid. Incredible result that was repeated in 2013 when it recorded the absolute African record of viewers with 650 million connected for the game against Atletico Mineiro, another great Brazilian club.
Podcast tomorrow on the past week and on an event in which our founder will participate this weekend, don’t forget Morocco, next week is his week. Follow us on our facebook page, Spotify, YouTube and Instagram, or on our Telegram channel. Any like,sharing or support is welcome and helps us to devote ourselves more and more to our passion: telling the Middle East.
