Wahbi Plans Major Overhaul for Morocco Post-World Cup
The World Cup is over. The noise has faded. For Morocco, the real work starts now.
Head coach Mohamed Wahbi, kept in his job despite a quarter-final exit at the 2026 tournament, has begun dismantling the squad that carried the Atlas Lions through the United States, Canada and Mexico. Loyalty has its limits. Wahbi has clearly decided this group has gone as far as it can in its current form.
Morocco’s run ended with a 2–0 defeat to France in the last eight, a respectable finish on paper but not enough to silence doubts about depth, variety and the impact off the bench. Those questions have reached the coach’s desk, and he has chosen to answer them with a scalpel, not a sticking plaster.
Six World Cup Names Set to Fall
According to Moroccan outlet Sport7, Wahbi has already settled on leaving out six players who were part of his World Cup squad when he announces his list for the September international break.
The casualties are significant:
- Ayoub El Kaabi
- Sofyan Amrabat
- Amine Sbai
- Youssef Belammari
- Marwan Saadane
- Goalkeeper Munir Mohamedi
That is not a tweak. It is a statement.
These are players who have worn the shirt on the biggest stage, some of them pillars of recent campaigns. Their omission signals a coach prepared to move past reputations in search of something sharper, quicker, more adaptable.
Sport7 also reports that more names could follow. Halhal and Amimoni are among those at risk as Wahbi pushes ahead with a broader restructuring of his group. No one on the fringes can feel safe. The message is clear: past involvement at the World Cup does not guarantee a future in the national team.
Fresh Blood, New Ideas
Wahbi is not just cutting; he is rebuilding.
The September camp, scheduled for the end of the month, is expected to feature a wave of new faces. The coach wants to test different profiles, experiment with new tactical options and expand his range of solutions, especially from the bench.
He knows what the last cycle lacked: variety, unpredictability, the ability to change a game with a substitution rather than simply replace like for like. That shortfall was exposed in the pressure moments of the World Cup. It will not be allowed to linger into the next phase.
So Morocco enters the post-2026 era with the same coach but a very different feel. Stability on the touchline, volatility in the dressing room. The Atlas Lions are being stripped back and reshaped, not out of panic, but out of a hard-edged belief that good is no longer good enough.
The September list will tell its own story. The real question is whether the new names Wahbi brings in can write a better one.
