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.

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.

“When I hear the words of coach Didier Deschamps, it shocks me,” Rothen said on French sports broadcaster RMC Sport.

“With Bouaddi, we didn’t have to wait to see what he did against Brazil to realise that he’s a young player who was ahead of his time,” he said in praise of the midfielder.

Prodigious talent

Being ahead of his time has been a theme throughout Bouaddi’s career. On the eve of his 17th birthday, in 2024, the rising star helped Lille secure a famous Champions League victory over Real Madrid.

On that special October night in northern France, Bouaddi faced a midfield comprising French internationals Eduardo Camavinga and Aurelien Tchouameni.

Following the Brazil match on Saturday, football experts heaped praise on Bouaddi’s ability to soak up pressure and stand out as Morocco’s midfield maestro.

Despite his young age, pressure was not a problem for a boy raised to handle it from a young age – thanks to his exposure to top-flight football and, also, his father.

Hassan Bouaddi, a former handball player, pursued a post-sporting career as a banking director while also serving as deputy mayor for Creil – a town about 50km north of Paris.

The older Bouaddi took a keen interest in ensuring athletic infrastructure was available to the city’s youth.

The same sport-loving mentality was enshrined in Ayyoub, who was playing for the local football club AFC Creil at the age of five but with a heavy emphasis on education.

The midfielder sat for the French Baccalaureate as a 16-year-old – a year early – and is currently pursuing a degree in mathematics.

Bouaddi’s versatility can be seen on the pitch as well. Typically, holding midfielders are known for their defensive abilities – shielding the defence from the opposition’s attacks by cutting out passing lanes – but this young talent’s repertoire includes the ability to start an attack, too.

In the match against favoured Brazil, he completed 91 percent of his passes, including all 16 of his passes in the attacking third of the pitch.

So effective was his two-way play against Brazil that defensive veteran Casemiro, a five-time winner of the UEFA Champions League, had to be hauled off at half-time.

Was it his versatility that led to Deschamps’s decision? The France manager has an abundance of attacking talent in the ranks that includes Ballon d’Or winner Ousmane Dembele, Bundesliga player of the year Michael Olise, and La Liga’s top scorer Kylian Mbappe.

As such, France’s midfielders are expected to run laterally, not vertically, to cover for their teammates.

Symbol of a new Morocco

A picture of a 10-year-old Bouaddi in the stands during the 2018 World Cup in Russia, wearing a Morocco shirt, has gone viral on social media in the aftermath of the Brazil game.

But his choice to play for Morocco was anything but a foregone conclusion.

“We had a lot of meetings with him to get him to choose Morocco, and he was good,” Morocco manager Mohamed Ouahbi told the media after the Brazil game.

A nationality switch application was filed and approved by FIFA in May.

In appointing Ouahbi – who won the 2025 Under-20 World Cup with Morocco – the Moroccan football federation wanted to see new blood and a new style pumped into the national team.

Many of the veterans associated with previous coach Walid Regragui, who took Morocco to the semifinals at Qatar 2022, exited stage left along with the defensive tactics that Morocco executed so well over the past few years.

Bouaddi is now the symbol of this new team and the rising star among Moroccan fans.

“He is amazing. What a talent, what a professional at 18 years of age,” Mohammed, a Morocco fan and the 29-year-old manager of Restaurante Jerusalen in Barcelona, Spain, told Al Jazeera.

“He was a surprise to all of us as we had never heard of him before this game! Now they say Arsenal wants to sign him.”

Lille extended Bouaddi’s contract last year and with three years remaining on the deal they are expected to ask suitors to start the bidding at 100 million euros ($114m).

“For those that slept instead of watching Brazil versus Morocco, they missed out on discovering the new [Sergio] Busquets,” Khalil Jadallah, a football commentator, said of Bouaddi’s talent.

“He can pass, he can defend, he can carry the ball, control the tempo … all this and he is only 18 years old.”

One particular moment caught Jadallah’s eye, which he says speaks to Bouaddi’s innate talent.

“He was dribbling past Brazilians in the last seconds of the game in front of his own area. He has crazy self-confidence.”

With Morocco’s matches against Scotland and Haiti yet to come, fans will be eager to see what Bouaddi can do for an encore.

If he rises to the occasion, Morocco might just make another deep World Cup run.