sochaux-full time premier league

The squad, announced Monday in Salé's Maâmora Sports Centre, features the absence of skipper Noureddine Naybet, who was hardly regular with his English Premiership club Tottenham this season.

The list also excludes other players who took part in the Atlas Lions' dismal performance in the last Cup of Nations earlier this year.

Norwich City playmaker Youssef Safri has pulled out of the summer international friendlies to ensure he is fully fit for the new season with his English club.

The 29-year-old midfielder, who suffered a string of injuries during his club's Championship campaign, has recently had his gall bladder removed, thus putting an end to his season with a few matches in hand.

Also to miss the Atlas Lions' warm-ups are exhausted Bordeaux striker Marouane Chamakh and midfielder Youssef Mokhtari, who has been released by FC Cologne after less than eight months with the Bundesliga club.

Mokhtari, who joined Cologne from second division Energie Cottbus in August, has made just 13 appearances this season. But since the arrival of Swiss coach Hanspeter Latour in January, the Moroccan international has only featured in the reserve team.

Striker Jaouad Zairi, who was a key player in Morocco's 2004 African runner-up team, is also among the absentees in Fakher's outfit, as he has bungled his season with Saudi club Al-Ittihad Jeddah, failing to secure a regular place in the A team.

The former FC Sochaux player was initially excluded from Fakher's line-up for the 2006 Cup of Nations, but was later called up to join the tune-up camp ahead of the tournament's kick-off, after Nancy's Moncef Zerka defaulted.

Fakher has called up Belgium-based forward Mbark Boussoufa, who is eyed by Dutch champions PSV Eindhoven and Belgian giants Anderlecht, to make his debut with the Atlas Lions in the tune-ups.

The 22-year-old player, who has won the 15th Ebony Shoe for his brilliant performance with Belgian first division club La Gantoise, was uncertain for Morocco's first friendly against the US, but he has confirmed his fitness after fully recovering from a knee injury sustained last month in a Belgian premier league match.

AZ Alkmaar's Tarik Sektioui and Metz' Jaouad Alioui, both members in Morocco's World Cup qualification campaign, will make their comeback, after they missed the Cup of Nations in Egypt.

The team will enter a training camp on May 16-20 at Maâmora, before flying to Nashville, Tennessee, where they will take on the World Cup US qualifying team on May 23.

The Atlas Lions will play Mali in Paris four days later, before facing Colombia in Barcelona on June 4. The last friendly will be held in Rabat against Burkina Faso on August 16.

Over the last two months, Fakher and his assistant Samir Ajjam made a tour in Europe and the Gulf to assess the level of different abroad-based Moroccan players and consider their joining of the team in the forthcoming friendly and official matches.


“We had a series of meetings with the players, and we have realised that those who will join us can perfectly constitute a solid group, together with the players who have already gained some experience,” said the team manager, who took over from Badou Zaki only two weeks ahead of the 2006 Cup of Nations.

“We'll have to take advantage of the period separating the end of the different leagues and the start of the World Cup to build this team with enthusiastic and ambitious players,” he added at a press conference on Monday.

Morocco were handed relatively tractable rivals in the run-up to the continent's top football tournament, as they were drawn with Malawi and Zimbabwe in Group 12, the sole three-team pool of the qualifications, a situation that means only the top team will get through.

In the other groups, however, automatic qualification is guaranteed to the winners, while the best three runners-up will join them into the finals.