Hakimi and the kiss to his mother after Belgium-Morocco at the World Cup – Corriere.it

A kiss on the forehead, an embrace, eyes red with emotion. Morocco beat champions Belgium 2-0, e Ahraf Hakimi he has no doubts. At the final whistle he runs towards the stands, hers where his mother Fatima is waiting for him, her veil covering her head, a flag wrapping her around. She looks at him, kisses him, hugs him. She helps him take off his shirt, the heirloom of this magical night. And she hugs him. An image so different and far from the urban warfare that broke out in Brussels, where some young Moroccan fans stormed the streets in the centre. The World Cup in all its angles.

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Not the first time that Hakimi – 24-year-old right winger, a scudetto with Inter in 2021 (today at PSG) – has dedicated one of his sporting successes to the family. Mom always mom, but this victory also for my father who accompanied me to training, even a long way from home – he said after the Scudetto in the Nerazzurri -. They have supported my dream of being a footballer, they have been close to me in moments of joy and in those of bitterness. That’s why it’s only fair that today I repay them for what they gave me.

His name, Achraf, means very honourable, very noble. Perhaps for this reason, even on the day of the historic triumph over Belgium at the World Cup, his first thought always turned to his father, who worked as a street vendor to raise him, and to the mother who raised him together with his brother and sister. And that to make ends meet she worked as a housekeeper in the noble houses of Madrid, the city where they settled and where Hakimi was born.

They have always supported, encouraged and pushed him to improve. If you don’t study, you don’t go to training, his mother Fatima admonished him, when Achraf as a child went around with the ball under his arm and thought of nothing else. Today, twenty years later, their eyes met again, happy, on a (magical) World night.