Rachid Azzouzi ( ar, رشيد عزّوزي) (born 10 January 1971) is a Moroccan former

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

and current sporting director. Raised in Germany, he represented

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to ...

at international level.

Early life

Azzouzi was born in Taounate, Morocco, and moved as a child with his family to Germany. He was raised in

Rhineland The Rhineland (german: Rheinland; french: Rhénanie; nl, Rijnland; ksh, Rhingland; Latinised name: ''Rhenania'') is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly its middle section. Term Historically, the Rhinelands ...

Club career

Azzouzi began playing as a youth for Hertha and Alemannia Mariadorf. In 1988, he moved to 1.FC Köln, where he would play for one year. He later played for several clubs, including

MSV Duisburg Meidericher Spielverein 02 e. V. Duisburg, commonly known as simply MSV Duisburg (), is a Football in Germany, German association football club based in Duisburg, North Rhine-Westphalia. Nicknamed ''Die Zebras'' for their traditional striped jers ...

from 1989 to 1995,

Fortuna Köln Fortuna ( la, Fortūna, equivalent to the Greek goddess Tyche) is the goddess of fortune and the personification of luck in Roman religion who, largely thanks to the Late Antique author Boethius, remained popular through the Middle Ages until at ...

for two years and then for

SpVgg Greuther Fürth Spielvereinigung Greuther Fürth (), commonly known as Greuther Fürth (), is a German football club based in Fürth, Bavaria. They play in the 2. Bundesliga, the second tier of the German football league system, following relegation from the B ...

, but before which he played for half a year for

Chongqing Lifan Chongqing Liangjiang Athletic () is a defunct Chinese football club. The team was based in Chongqing. The club was founded in 1995 as Wuhan Qianwei before making their debut in the newly developed fully professional Chinese football league system ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. In total, he played 260 second division games, in which he scored 30 goals. In his 64 Bundesliga games for

he scored three times. In the 2004–05 Season he was coach of the Fürther U-17-Jugendmannschaft and was relegated with the team from the B-Jugend-Regionalliga.

International career

He played for the

Morocco national football team The Morocco national football team,french: Équipe du Maroc de football nicknamed "the Barbary lion, Atlas Lions", represents Morocco in men's international Association football, football competitions. It is controlled by the Royal Moroccan Foo ...

and was a participant at the

1992 Summer Olympics The 1992 Summer Olympics ( es, Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1992, ca, Jocs Olímpics d'estiu de 1992), officially known as the Games of the XXV Olympiad ( es, Juegos de la XXV Olimpiada, ca, Jocs de la XXV Olimpíada) and commonly known as ...

1994 FIFA World Cup The 1994 FIFA World Cup was the 15th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men's national soccer teams. It was hosted by the United States and took place from June 17 to July 17, 1994, at nine venues across the country. The United States ...

and at the

1998 FIFA World Cup The 1998 FIFA World Cup was the 16th FIFA World Cup, the football world championship for men's national teams. The finals tournament was held in France from 10 June to 12 July 1998. The country was chosen as the host nation by FIFA for the ...

Sporting director career

After the end of his playing career, Azzouzi served as assistant to the manager from 2005 to 2007, then Team-Manager in 2007-08, and then

sporting director A sporting director, or director of sport, is an executive management position in a sports club. The role is well known as a manager role for European football clubs, which are sometime also "sports clubs", offering many types of sports. The sport ...

for

. On 25 May 2012, it was announced that Azzouzi will become the new sporting director of Germany second division club

FC St. Pauli Fußball-Club St Pauli von 1910 e.V., commonly known as simply FC St Pauli (), is a German professional football club based in the St. Pauli district of Hamburg, that competes in the 2. Bundesliga. The football department is part of a larger sp ...

. On 16 December 2014, he left his position in St. Pauli. On 10 June 2015 he was signed a two-years contract as a sporting director of

Fortuna Düsseldorf Düsseldorfer Turn- und Sportverein Fortuna 1895 e.V., commonly known as Fortuna Düsseldorf (), is a German football club in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, which competes in the 2. Bundesliga. Founded in 1895, Fortuna entered the league ...

. However, this cooperation ended after just under a year, on 25 May 2016. On 22 November 2017, Azzouzi returned to

as sporting director.

References

External links

* Living people 1971 births People from Fez, Morocco Association football midfielders Moroccan footballers Morocco international footballers Moroccan expatriate footballers Bundesliga players 2. Bundesliga players MSV Duisburg players SpVgg Greuther Fürth players SC Fortuna Köln players Chongqing Liangjiang Athletic F.C. players Expatriate footballers in Germany Expatriate footballers in China 1994 FIFA World Cup players 1998 FIFA World Cup players Olympic footballers of Morocco Footballers at the 1992 Summer Olympics 1992 African Cup of Nations players 1998 African Cup of Nations players Moroccan expatriate sportspeople in Germany Moroccan expatriate sportspeople in China FC St. Pauli managers Moroccan football managers {{Morocco-footy-bio-stub