Morocco Fire Michel. Again.

February 8th, 2008 | by: Daryl | Comments Off

Morocco fired Henri Michel for the second time yesterday, citing “several reasons.” At least one of those several reasons was Morocco’s failure to make it out of Group A, where they finished behind Guinea in third place. It all started so well, with a 5-1 mauling of Namibia, but defeats to Guinea and then Ghana followed and that was the end of that. Another of the mysterious “several reasons” was likely Michel’s comments at a press conferece on returning to Morocco, where he criticized the overall structure of Moroccan football and the Moroccan FA by association.

There’s a lesson for all managers there: Losing games + criticizing your bosses = unhappy bosses.

The Frenchman had previously been in charge of the Atlas Lions from 1995-2000 but was fired for the first time after Morocco failed to make it out of the group stage of Africa Cup of Nations 2000. And though Mohammed Fakhir had led the team through qualification for Africa Cup of Nations 2008, the Moroccan FA decided to get rid of Fakhir and bring back Michel. Unfortunately Michel’s management produced the same result as in 2000. Something tells me he won’t be invited back for a third spell.