the tumultuous journey of Ibrahim Maaroufi – Mountakhab – The Lions of the Atlas

Ibrahim Maaroufi, former Inter Milan and FC Twente player, has had a tumultuous career between broken promises and unexpected trials. Trained in Anderlecht before joining PSV Eindhoven, where he should have followed in the footsteps of other talents of Moroccan origin, he distinguished himself with a career marked by waiting and frustration. After a promising start to his career, notably with a stint at Inter Milan alongside stars like Zlatan Ibrahimović, he found himself in a vicious circle of loans and incessant moves, between Belgium, Switzerland and Morocco, without ever establish itself over the long term. This lack of stability, linked to the absence of minutes of play and injuries, derails a career which could have been much better.

But at 35, after a career marked by a series of difficult choices, today finds peace off the field. After years of turmoil, including a traumatic experience when his identity was stolen and used by one of the terrorists in the 2016 Brussels attacks, Maaroufi retired from professional football. He then decided to retrain as a youth coach at OH Leuven, where he used his past experiences to guide the future generation of footballers. Today, he sees his past as a football nomad as a lesson in patience and resilience, hoping to pass on this wisdom to the young players he mentors.