There isn’t any higher time to see both crew play than on Casablanca derby day, after they face off towards one another of their house metropolis. As the gamers emerge from the tunnel of Stade Mohammed V and onto the pitch, the “Donor” (the stadium’s native nickname) undergoes a metamorphosis. To the north, the Curva Nord part erupts in a tidal wave of carmine crimson, the colours of Wydad AC. To the south, the Magana Curve solutions with a defiant, shimmering wall of emerald inexperienced, the badge of Raja CA. “Casablanca has one of the most passionate football cultures in the world,” says Omar Boumeshoul, a Raja CA fan primarily based in the metropolis. “Wydad AC and Raja CA have the biggest rivalry, and both are based in Casablanca, splitting the city into two. You’re either dima Raja or dima Wydad.”
That ardour has expanded far past Casablanca lately because of the Moroccan nationwide crew’s performances on the world stage. The crew’s historic run at the 2022 FIFA World Cup noticed Morocco grow to be the first African and Arab nation to achieve the semi-finals, beating soccer giants Portugal and Spain. That second didn’t simply make historical past, it reshaped expectations of what was potential—and briefly unified rivalries like Wydad’s and Raja’s right into a single nationwide voice.
“It felt like the whole city was speaking one language for the first time,” says Boumeshoul. “Even people who argue every week about the derby were together. You didn’t care who someone supported, you just cared that Morocco was winning.”
The work required to create the power felt each in the stadium and the streets begins lengthy earlier than match day. Loyal followers collect night time after night time in the metropolis’s workshops to color banners representing their crew, usually the peak of the stands and depicting photos of gladiators or political allegories. Songs are rehearsed and chants like “F bladi delmouni” (“In my country, they wronged me”) and Raja’s “Rajawi Falastini,” a defiant anthem about identification and solidarity, are perfected. The fruits of these efforts come collectively as spectacular tifos, the wider soccer custom of followers creating large-scale, coordinated shows of help in the stands.
“People see the spectacle for 90 minutes,” says Moha Belkacem, a die-hard Wydad fan. “But for us, it’s weeks of work. We design it, fund it, and build it ourselves. It’s how we speak.” For many concerned—college students, laborers, and artists alike—that is greater than fandom: it’s a kind of artistic expression. As Sofiane El Amrani, a tifo designer and Raja fan, places it: “The stadium is our canvas. What you see there is the story of the city, its anger, its pride, its imagination.”
