Belhanda’s Grudge Against Regragui After World Cup Exclusion
For Morocco, the 2022 World Cup will forever be remembered as a fairytale. For Younès Belhanda, it remains an open wound.
While the Atlas Lions were rewriting history in Qatar, marching to the semi-finals and becoming the first African and Arab side to reach that stage, one of the most experienced figures of the last decade in Moroccan football was watching from the outside — and hurting.
Now 36 and playing for Al-Sailiya in Qatar, Belhanda has laid bare the bitterness that still colours his relationship with national team coach Walid Regragui, the man who chose to leave him out of that historic squad.
Speaking on “Rio Ferdinand Presents”, in comments reported by Spanish newspaper Marca, the midfielder did not soften a single word.
“Even today, I still hold a grudge against Walid Regragui. I did not understand it,” he said.
He has 59 caps, a major role in previous Morocco cycles, and a career that took him through Montpellier and several European stops. None of that eased the blow. What stings, he insists, is not just the decision itself, but the way it was handled.
“He did not even call me, nothing at all! It was very painful, and I have not got over it even now,” Belhanda added.
From Hope to Silence
The story, as Belhanda tells it, is not one of a player slowly drifting away from the national team. It is the opposite. He thought he was on his way back.
“I had spent two years without being called up to the Morocco national team, and my relationship with Walid Regragui was very close,” he said. “He was my assistant coach, and we talked a lot. Then he called me to call me up to the team right before the World Cup, and gave me hope.”
That phone call changed everything. A coach he trusted, a man he knew well, was now in charge. The door, it seemed, had opened again. The World Cup in Qatar, of all places, looked like the perfect stage for a return.
Then came the squad announcement.
No Belhanda.
“It did not destroy me, but it certainly affected me,” he admitted.
The exclusion itself might have been survivable. Footballers live with selection and rejection their entire careers. What Belhanda could not accept was the void that followed.
“On the day the squad was announced, I called him, but he did not answer,” he said. “I just wanted an explanation. Be a man and tell me: ‘Younès, I make my decisions.’ I was no longer 15 years old, I was 32. I would have understood it, and accepting it would have been easier.”
He paused, then went back to the same raw point.
“But there was not even a single call, nothing! It was very painful, and I have not got over it even now.”
Turning Away From a Nation’s Triumph
As Morocco’s run in Qatar gathered pace, the country exploded in colour and noise. From Doha to Casablanca, the Atlas Lions became a global story.
Belhanda turned away.
“I did not care, and I did not even watch the matches,” he said.
That single line cuts through the usual polite diplomacy of ex-internationals. No pretence, no forced pride. Just distance. Deliberate and deep.
The rupture did not stop with the World Cup, either. Belhanda described how the fallout altered the way he connected with the national team in general, even when he did eventually tune in again.
He recalled watching the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations final against Senegal. For years, Morocco games had been emotional events for him, lived intensely, almost viscerally. This one was different.
“I watched the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations final against Senegal, but I did not follow it the way I follow Morocco national team matches,” he said, his words laced with regret. “You can see how far this anger reached.”
A World Cup semi-final run usually binds generations together — those who played, those who came before, those who dream of following. For Younès Belhanda, it did the opposite. It left a scar that still shapes how he sees his country’s greatest footballing achievement, and how he sees the man who led it.
