Belhanda’s Grudge Against Regragui After World Cup Omission
Time has not softened Younès Belhanda.
Two years on from Morocco’s historic World Cup run in Qatar, the midfielder still carries a wound that refuses to close. While the Atlas Lions rewrote African and Arab football history by reaching the semi-finals in 2022, Belhanda watched it all from the outside – angry, hurt, and, by his own admission, detached.
The 36-year-old, now at Al-Sailiya in Qatar and capped 59 times by Morocco, has laid bare the resentment he still feels towards national team coach Walid Regragui, the man who chose to leave him out of that squad.
Speaking on “Rio Ferdinand Presents”, in comments reported by Spanish newspaper “Marca”, Belhanda did not disguise the bitterness.
“Even today, I still hold a grudge against Walid Regragui. I did not understand it,” he said.
The omission itself stunned many at the time. A seasoned international, a creative midfielder with experience in Europe at Montpellier and elsewhere, suddenly cut adrift on the eve of the country’s biggest modern football story.
For Belhanda, the real pain lies not in the decision, but in the silence that wrapped around it.
Hope, Then a Sudden Cut
Belhanda’s frustration is sharpened by the context. His relationship with Regragui was not distant, not formal. It was close.
“I had spent two years without being called up to the Morocco national team, and my relationship with Walid Regragui was very close,” he explained. “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 lit a fire. After two years out, the door seemed to reopen just in time for Qatar. A veteran playmaker, trusted by a coach he knew well, believing he was on the verge of a comeback at the perfect moment.
Then came the squad announcement.
His name wasn’t there.
“It did not destroy me, but it certainly affected me,” he admitted.
The shock was one thing. The way it was handled, in his eyes, was something else entirely.
“Be a Man and Tell Me”
Belhanda tried to reach Regragui on the day the list was made public. He wanted clarity, or at least a conversation.
“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.”
No answer. No message. No closure.
“He did not even call me, nothing at all! It was very painful, and I have not got over it even now,” Belhanda added.
For a player who had worn the shirt 59 times, who had invested in a relationship with a coach he trusted, the silence cut deeper than any tactical snub. It left him not just out of the squad, but out of the story.
Turning Away From a Historic Run
As Morocco surged through Qatar, eliminating giants and capturing the imagination of the football world, Belhanda’s reaction was not pride. It was distance.
“I did not care, and I did not even watch the matches,” he said.
While the Atlas Lions celebrated becoming the first African and Arab team to reach a World Cup semi-final, one of their former pillars chose to look away. His anger had reached the point where the national team no longer felt like his.
That estrangement did not end with Qatar. It seeped into the way he followed Morocco’s later exploits as well.
Belhanda recalled the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations final against Senegal and how it exposed the change in his relationship with the team.
“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 generation of Moroccan fans will always remember Qatar 2022 as a miracle month. For Younès Belhanda, it remains something else entirely: the tournament that passed him by, without a call, without an explanation, and without a chance to say goodbye on his own terms.
