4 min readJun 14, 2026 08:34 AM IST
There is an incident from Ismael Saibari’s career that still rankles him to this day. It involves the time when Belgian club Anderlecht decided to cut him from the youth team as a 14-year-old. The reason: he was overweight.
Although his career blew up after that snub, with him playing for clubs like PSV, where he was coached by legendary striker Ruud van Nistlerooy, Saibari still carries the scar of that incident.
On Saturday, Saibari became the toast of the town back home in Morocco after scoring the team’s goal against Brazil in their FIFA World Cup opener at the New York New Jersey Stadium. Put through on goal by a perfectly weighted through ball from Brahim Diaz, the ball seemed to speed past Brazil’s two central defenders only to slow down for Saibari to chip it over the keeper Alisson with a split-second decision.
The Anderlecht snub does come up frequently when Saibari does interviews.
“I got an injury at Anderlecht and was getting less playing time. But it was mostly the way they handled it that hurt. They told me before the end of the season that I would be staying because they believed in me, but then right before the new season started, they changed their minds and told me I had to look for a new club,” Saibari once told In Den Oto Met Den Tricoo, a popular Dutch YouTube show.
“It was tough because you suddenly realize your minutes and future are gone. But it served as a massive turning point for me. It forced me to start working significantly harder and stay motivated. When you’re young, you expect to play, and suddenly you are sent away. But you have to use that pain to fuel your hunger.”
Offer to play for Belgium
Saibari playing for Morocco itself came into being because of a decision he consciously took. He’s had a multi-cultural upbringing, being of Moroccan heritage, born in Spain, and moving to Belgium around age 6 where he took his first steps towards the sport. He spent over a decade in Belgium.
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“I have many memories between the ages of 4 and 6. I remember playing on the streets with older guys who were 10 or 12 years old,” Saibari told PSV Eindhoven’s in-house show called Table Talk.
In that conversation he let slip that he was once approached by former Belgium boss Roberto Martinez in 2022 to play for them. For any other player, it would have been a no-brainer. After all, Belgium had finished third at the 2018 World Cup under Martinez. But Saibari declined.
“When you choose a national team, it has to come straight from your heart,” he told Table Talk. “It shouldn’t be a tactical decision about where you’ll do better. You play for an entire country, so you must feel it. The former Belgian national coach, Roberto Martínez, spoke to me about a future with Belgium, but Morocco came along. Having played for Morocco’s youth teams, the choice was made quickly. It’s beautiful when two top countries want you; it shows hard work pays off.”
Recently, Saibari was in the news for a bizarre incident at the Africa Cup of Nations where he was caught on video stealing towels kept for Senegal goalkeeper Édouard Mendy. Saibari and Achraf Hakimi were trying to prevent Mendy from using the towels to dry his gloves in the rain. After that act of immaturity, when Saibari saw the reaction of the world, he realised he had made headlines for the wrong reasons. He went and personally apologised to Senegal’s Mendy and other players.
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On Saturday, with one moment of fleet-footed brilliance, he made headlines for the right reason.
