World Cup: Who is Ayyoub Bouaddi, the French teenager playing for Morocco?

Until last month, France-based teen footballer Ayyoub Bouaddi probably thought he would experience this year’s FIFA World Cup the way most 18-year-olds do – watching it on a TV, surrounded by friends and family, and most likely backing Les Bleus, one of the pre-tournament favourites and the team he would join in the future. Having risen through the French youth ranks, Bouaddi was tied to the French national team programme and marked as a future talent. But Bouaddi was no ordinary 18-year-old. He had recently become the youngest player to record 50 appearances in France’s top tier of club football – Ligue 1. Ayyoub Bouaddi claps as he leaves the pitch following the match against Brazil [Adam Hunger/AP] Despite his prodigious talent, France manager Didier Deschamps wanted the curly-haired teenager to continue in the country’s youth ranks, where he captained France’s Under-21 team as recently as March. Morocco saw an opportunity and pounced. Deschamps’s reluctance to call Bouaddi up to national duty for the World Cup is now a matter of grave controversy in France. Former Paris Saint-Germain and Monaco midfielder Jerome Rothen expressed his dismay while analysing Morocco’s opening World Cup game against Brazil in New Jersey . Bouaddi stood out for his mental and physical strength amid a cacophony of noise, the five-time world champions and their tens of thousands of fans in the cauldron that was the New York New Jersey Stadium . …