Brahim Díaz had the African Cup on his feet that Morocco had not won for half a century. He only had to score the penalty and the nation would experience the greatest celebration of conquest since the Almoravids. The stopwatch dictated that in the 98th minute the added time of the final had run out. All that was left was for the idol to touch the ball and put it in the 7.32m by 2.44m rectangle so that after 29 days of the tournament the ecstasy of the people gathered in pilgrimage would be unleashed. Filled to overflowing with more than 70,000 devotees, the Prince Mulay stadium in Rabat, built on purpose to host that moment, stood like a monument in his honor. Glory was discounted when the 26-year-old hit the ball like he was hitting buffalo mozzarella.
“My soul hurts,” Brahim declared this Monday on his Instagram account. “Yesterday I failed. I take full responsibility and apologize from the bottom of my heart.”
“Let’s be serious, please!”, responded the Senegalese goalkeeper, Éduard Mendy, annoyed when after the drama someone asked him if Brahim had really wanted to score the goal or what the world had just seen was the result of a kind of theatrical manipulation between goalkeeper and striker to put a Solomonic end to one of the most extravagant episodes in the history of a tournament with a long tradition of bizarre events.
The game had been suspended for 16 minutes after a sequence that left everyone in a bad place. First, because the referee had annulled an apparently legal goal against Senegal in the 95th minute, alleging that Diouf, before heading, had lightly touched Hakimi, who collapsed. Then because, two minutes later without more time to react, in the last corner of the night, the same referee, the Congolese Jean Jacques Ndala, had called an apparently non-existent penalty in favor of Morocco, after Brahim fell in the area due to a soft contact with the hand of poor Diouf. With the VAR call, the subsequent analysis of the same repeated image that proved nothing, and Judge Ndala’s final decree, the drama reached its peak when Senegalese coach Pape Thiaw ordered his players to leave the field in protest at what he considered a continued act of sabotage by the organization. For a few minutes, all the Senegalese disappeared into the locker room except Sadio Mané, who was in charge of getting them back into the game to attend, presumably, the collective execution at the hands of Brahim. But Brahim shot into Mendy’s hands, the final went to extra time, and Pape Gueye scored the winning goal for Senegal.
“The CAF is reviewing videos”
Senegal took the trophy, but the organization promises sanctions. This Monday it was announced in a statement: “The African Football Confederation condemns the unacceptable behavior of some players and officials during the final of the African Cup played between Morocco and Senegal. The CAF strongly condemns the behavior whose objective is to defame the referees. The CAF is reviewing videos and will send the evidence to the competent bodies so that they can take measures against those found guilty.”
Pale and in shock, Brahim was substituted in extra time. When he emerged from the shadow of the bench to collect the runners-up medal he looked like a zombie. FIFA president Gianni Infantino gave him a hug. The president of the Moroccan federation, Fouzi Lekjaa, gave him another hug. The podium of the African Cup final, tailor-made for Morocco, became the place where everyone paid their condolences to the man with the missed penalty. The man from Malaga, winner of the tournament’s Golden Boot with five goals, the most powerful image of the competition until this Sunday, walked around bathed in tears. His first campaign as a Moroccan player had ended unexpectedly badly. After 21 undefeated games, the Real Madrid attacker became the protagonist of the defeat in the most important sporting event in the history of the country that hosted him.
Regragui: “It was embarrassing”
“Brahim took the penalty the way he took it,” Walid Regragui, the Moroccan coach, said on Sunday. “These are football things. What is not normal is the image we gave of Africa tonight. It was shameful. For a coach to ask his players to leave the field… What Pape did does not honor Africa! He has no class. He stopped the game before the eyes of the world for ten minutes! That did not help Brahim. We were one minute away from being champions.”
They gave him number ten. Pythagoras’ magic number. They promised him ownership. He was guaranteed multi-million dollar sponsorship contracts with Orange Morocco, Bank of Africa and Visa. They hailed him as a national prophet since he resigned from the Spanish team a year and a half ago to play for the country of his paternal grandparents. In exchange for what?
“They gave me love,” Brahim repeats, to justify his decision to change his sporting nationality. In the transaction, he exposed himself until he became the main pillar of a team that represented the desires and fantasies of a people. The nightmare was served.
