Hakim Ziyech has come out of the penumbra

Three matches in the World Cup were enough for him to exceed the minutes accumulated so far in the season between the Premier League and the Champions League. Nevertheless Hakim Ziyech he’s not just any player. But in the bizarre and at times dysfunctional Chelsea of ​​this first part of the championship, the former Ajax star found himself on the sidelines, being offered to anyone over the summer, one step away from returning to the Cruijff Arena, finally confined to the wheel spare in a team that over the years has amassed talent in an almost hysterical way. So it’s not surprising that the Moroccan born in Dronten, an hour’s drive from Amsterdam, has so far been one of the most electric players in the World Cup, in an inevitable parallel with Christian Pulisic, another who is finding little space at Chelsea .

Years ago, his decision to accept Morocco’s call after playing for the Netherlands’ youth national teams caused a stir. Now it seems natural to us that he is the beacon of one of the brightest national teams in the first phase of the World Cup. The goal with which Canada stunned at the start of the game, although the result of an obvious mistake by the North American goalkeeper, is a little jewel made with the simplicity with which you order a coffee at the bar. Ziyech dug the ball from underneath with a fluidity that we had almost forgotten in these months of forced oblivion.

As a young man, he grew up slipping into minor offenses between one practice match on the street and another: “The street makes you a different person. I was small and played against older boys: the kicks I received, for the mere fact of being stronger than them , they made me a tougher person. There I acquired the mindset that has helped me throughout my life,” he told the Guardian years ago. An adolescence marked by excesses inaugurated by the loss of his father when he was only ten years old. The meeting with Aziz Doufikar, a former Moroccan footballer with a career that also passed from Holland, allows him to get on the right path. Flourishes in the Heerenveen nursery, rises to the first team thanks to Marco van Basten but his relationship with the former AC Milan legend is tormented. The two often come to clash and Ziyech is not afraid of him: he accuses him of a coaching career due solely to his previous qualities as a footballer. And Marco beats him when Hakim chooses Morocco: “A stupid choice”. Ziyech goes straight: “I’ve never been afraid to say my opinion. When I speak, I say what I’m feeling at that moment.” And when Hakim’s feet speak, football responds.

Two sparkling years at Twente, then Ajax. He is one of the standard-bearers of the team that upsets Europe with ten Hag on the bench, a playmaker moved to the side, a game inventor capable of creating for himself and for others. He comes close to arriving in Rome, close to winning the Europa League and also the Champions League final. And above all he touches the ball like few others, with a creative talent unmatched in Europe. His left foot recalls echoes of the past, when he opens the field from right to left it seems to see Gheorghe Hagi again. He has a huge influence on Ajax’s game and like so many others in that team, at some point, he finds himself having to pack his bags.

Chelsea called him, starting with Lampard and then continuing with Tuchel, until the Champions League victory. But the impression is that the Premier League is not for him completely, because the frenzy often does not include the breaks that Hakim takes to read the game. Milan continues to observe him, perhaps thinking back to last summer, when they preferred not to sink the blow. Today he will be able to monitor him grappling with Spain, when he will try to drag his Morocco to another enterprise after taking the scalp of Belgium. Maybe cultivating the hope that, at least for once, Hakim decides to hide and not raise the price. Assuming his talent allows it.