Red Card Blues: Hamdallah's Arab Cup Setback and the Renard Saga Reignites
5 December 2025
Match incident and red card against Oman
Abderrazak Hamdallah, captain of the Moroccan national team, received a straight red card during the Oman clash on Friday, in the second round of Group B of the Arab Cup held in Qatar.
The red card came after a harsh challenge on Omani defender Hani Al-Rashidi, denying the forward a place in the decisive match against Saudi Arabia in the tournament's third round.
Tarik Saktiooui, the Atlas Lions' coach, had started Hamdallah in the Oman game with the aim of preparing him physically and tactically for Saudi Arabia, but the player delivered a lackluster performance.
Hamdallah also missed a clear one-on-one in the first half against Oman’s goalkeeper, while squandering several simple balls, before his participation ended with a red card.
Disciplinary officials are expected to suspend him for at least two matches, given the straight red, which would rule him out of the Saudi game led by his former coach Hervé Renard.
The friction between Hamdallah and Renard dates back to Renard’s tenure as Morocco coach before the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations, when the player left the squad days before the tournament.
That episode triggered a major crisis that kept him out of the national team for three years, until he apologized and returned by a decision of Walid Regraki, the Morocco coach, and went on to play at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
With his red card today, Hamdallah loses a golden chance to face Renard and Saudi in a decisive group-stage clash that could decide Morocco's fate in the Arab Cup.
Context and implications
In the larger context, the episode underscores ongoing tensions between players and coaching staff that can shape a national team’s tournament trajectory more than a single game. Morocco must navigate not only the opposition on the pitch but also the ghosts of past disagreements that continue to influence selection and morale. The Arab Cup, meanwhile, remains a stage where personal narratives and national expectations collide, sometimes more loudly than the whistle.
Hamdallah’s absence, if confirmed for multiple matches, could force Morocco to rethink its attacking options in a tournament where every point counts. For Renard’s Saudi side, the match against Morocco will carry extra symbolism, given the history and the leadership that changes hands between the two nations’ camps.
As the dust settles, football fans are left debating whether discipline or redemption will prevail in a competition that relentlessly tests players’ temperaments and teams’ plans. And yes, someone will probably blame gravity for that missed chance—classic football performance art.
Punchline time: if red cards were currency, Hamdallah just minted a big one. And in the game of football, sometimes the only thing louder than the whistle is the joke that follows: he’s learning that even strikers can fail a fitness test against a punchline.
