Former Morocco coach angry because he was fired before the 2022 World Cup
"They took away my pride," Halilhodzic told Croatian news site tportal.hr on December 24. "I cannot forget that, nor can I forgive them. The 2022 World Cup should have been the last tournament before I left my coaching career."
The FRMF fired Halilhodzic in August 2022 and appointed Walid Regragui - who played left-back for Morocco in 2002-2009 and just retired in 2011. Only three months to prepare for the 2022 World Cup, Regragui is still Together with Morocco, they made history when they became the first African representative to reach the semi-finals of a World Cup. They then lost to France 0-2 in the semi-finals, and then lost to Croatia 1-2 in the third place match.
Halilhodzic insists Regragui's words of gratitude throughout the tournament in Qatar also "cannot ease the bitterness or make up for what he missed at the 2022 World Cup".
Halilhodzic has led Morocco since August 2019, and helped the team win tickets to the 2022 World Cup after defeating Congo in the qualifying round in March 2022. But on August 11, 2022, the 70-year-old coach was fired by the FRMF due to disagreements over the team's orientation.
Although he soon got a ticket to Qatar, Morocco's internal affairs under Halilhodzic were mixed again, when he was in conflict with the pillars of the team, including winger Hakim Ziyech and right-back Noussair Mazraoui. In it, Ziyech announced his retirement from the national team earlier this year when Halilhodzic accused him of refusing to go to the training ground.
Halilhodzic has experienced a similar situation twice - being sacked just before the World Cup - during his coaching career. In May 2008, he became the coach of Ivory Coast, with Didier Drogba as captain and many stars such as Yaya Toure, Kolo Toure, Salomon Kalou, Emmanuel Eboue or Gervinho.
Ivory Coast went undefeated in the Africa qualifiers for two years, thereby winning tickets to the 2010 Africa Cup in Angola and the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. The turning point came when Ivory Coast lost to Algeria in extra time in the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations quarter-finals. This defeat led to Halilhodzic being sacked in February 2010, less than four months before the World Cup in South Africa.
In March 2015, Halilhodzic became the Japanese coach. Despite helping Japan win tickets to the 2018 World Cup, Halilhodzic was criticized throughout his term when he abandoned the traditional short-ball game to pressure fiercely contested football - as he called it "duels". He also caused controversy when he eliminated stars like Keisuke Honda (AC Milan), Shinji Kagawa (Dortmund) or Shinji Okazaki (Leicester), and summoned Hotaru Yamaguchi - a player in the domestic second division.
The 1-4 defeat to South Korea at the 2017 East Asian Football Cup was the last straw, causing Halilhodzic to be sacked in April 2018. A month later, he sued the president of the Japan Football Association (JFA) Kozo Tashima to the Tokyo district court, claiming that he was fired illegally. Accordingly, Tashima is said to have not consulted the JFA board when firing Halilhodzic.
Halilhodzic is considered one of the best Yugoslav players in history, having played in France for Nantes from 1981 to 1986 and PSG from 1986 to 1987. At the international level, he has 15 caps for Yugoslavia and participated in the 1982 World Cup. During his coaching career, in addition to Morocco, Ivory Coast, Japan, Regarded also led many other teams such as Lille, Rennes , PSG, Dinamo Zagreb or Nantes.
