The Casablanca Derby is part of 90min's 50 Biggest Derbies in the World Series
You probably haven't heard of any of the players involved. You might not have heard of either of the teams involved, even, unless you're a particular connoisseur of north African football. But the Casablanca derby is wicked.
If it's any consolation, it probably hasn't heard of you either.
The rivalry between Raja Casablanca and Wydad Casablanca (we're not looking to pad out the word count here, we'll run with 'Raja' and 'Wydad' from here) started in the mid-1950s, Raja beating their slightly older city-mates 1-0 in the first ever meeting.
City-mates might actually be a bit reductive. They're not unique in this (see: the Rome and Milan derbies, for a start) but the two sides share the Mohammed V Stadium. Keep your 'Spurs and Arsenal only play a couple of miles apart, what a rivalry' stuff. Amateurs.
Both teams have gone through their highs and lows over the years – Raja didn't win the Moroccan league until 1988, and Wydad went into something of a slump of their own shortly afterwards – but they've managed to stay fairly close to each other in the derby.
Maybe too close, you could probably argue. While Raja hold the overall record by a small handful of wins, more than 45% of the games between them have ended in draws. That's more than you'd expect to see in a rivalry even between two fairly evenly matched teams – for comparison, something like 27% of north London derbies and 22.5% of Clasicos have ended as draws. A 45% draw rate is, like, bonkers close.
A crash course in the broad history of the two fanbases (broadly very similar; Wydad have historically been seen as more middle-class and privileged thanks to the one-time backing of King Mohammed V before his death in 1961) would take more space and a better understanding of Moroccan sociology than we have here, so have a selected set of facts to tide you over instead.
– John Toshack managed Wydad for two years and four Casablanca derbies. He won one, lost one and (surprise!) drew two. He also got fired two days after the BBC ran a piece on his 'successful sojourn' in Morocco ahead of the first leg of an African Champions League semi-final. To be fair to Wydad's directors, they did lose that match 4-0.
– Hicham Louissi won Wydad the Moroccan title in 2006, the defender coming in from the right and letting the ball run across him before hammering it into the top corner from easily 25 yards out. In the 95th minute of a title-deciding derby. YOWZA.
– This season saw the first meeting between the pair outside of Moroccan competition, Raja going through on away goals after a 5-5 aggregate draw – Congolese striker Ben Malango scoring in the 94th minute of the second leg to secure a 4-4 draw on the night and progression to the quarter-finals. Oh, and that second leg? Three penalties scored. 'Feisty'.
Oh, and there have been fights too. Proper fights, with over 100 people arrested after one match in 2010 – with a report at the time saying: "The return of the general public to the stadium was perceived as something positive, but the excesses of violence, a negative aspect of the demonstration, were also there. The party ended with a mess."
A taxi driver, it was reported, had his car smashed up by one set of fans (which team isn't specified, nor is it strictly important) because they'd seen him drop off a rival supporter. Y'know. 'fierce derby' stuff.
We won't pretend that European viewers are going to gravitate towards the Casablanca derby in the same way that they've poked their heads up at the Superclasico and the like in recent years – the coverage just isn't there and, frankly, nor is the standard of football. There's a reason that the majority of big-name Moroccan players' biographies start with the phrase 'born in [European country] to Moroccan parents...' – the standard, facilities and competition don't match up to many football powerhouses.
That doesn't matter much to the local fans though; leaving the Casablanca derby a little unspoiled jewel in the heart of north Africa, a match watchable mostly by grainy YouTube footage that makes it look like something from a time gone by.
Full stadiums. Passionate, sometimes over-passionate fans. Fiercely competitive football. Sometimes that's all it takes.
