Sports in Morocco

After an almost two-week hiatus, I'm back in the U.S. and back to blogging.  I was in Morocco for the last ten days, not a country that I typically associate with sports.  After spending a week and a half touring a number of the country's cities, however, I learned that the North African nation does indeed have a few interesting ties to professional sports.  Although I wasn't able to attend any sporting events while abroad, I was able to get a feel for Morocco's sporting culture and begin to understand what makes Moroccan sports fans tick.

At its northernmost point in the city of Tangiers, Morocco is only nine miles away from the southern coast of Spain.  As a result, Moroccans are huge fans of of Spanish League soccer, and in particular Real Madrid and FC Barcelona.  The streets and shops of Morocco's marketplaces are filled with Madrid and Barcelona gear - some of it officially licensed, but most of it handmade garments featuring crudely drawn or painted team logos.  Most Moroccan soccer fans don't have enough money to afford authentic Adidas or Nike merchandise, so instead local shops illegally sell knock-off shirts, caps and shoes.  The Moroccan-style Real Madrid sandal to the right is a good representation of the goods I found across Casablanca, Fes and Marrakech.

Everywhere we went, Moroccans asked us - in broken English - if we were Americans.  When we said that we were, they only wanted to talk about two things: President Obama and the MLS's Los Angeles Galaxy.  The latter goes to show that the David Beckham signing achieved its intended purpose, raising the profile of the MLS's premier team on an international level.  Even in the urban streets of Morocco, the phrase "Los Angeles Galaxy" has entered the extremely limited English vocabulary of the average Moroccan.

My other interesting sports-related story happened during the last three days of the trip, in Marrakech.  Marrakech, the country's most modern and upscale city, is host to the Marrakech Grand Prix, part of the FIA World Touring Car Championship.  As you can see from the picture below, the road in front of our hotel in the city's outskirts was part of the race's road course, and the street was lined with barricades to prevent race cars from flipping off of the track and into the surrounding real estate.  I think it was the first time that I had driven / walked on a race track before, and the surrounding city made the track a seemingly fascinating and unique place to hold a car race.  Thanks to the country's soccer-obsessed culture and Marrakech's Grand Prix, a weekend away from home provided some sports culture after all.

The Al Fassia hotel was located on the Marrakech Grand Prix track.