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

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 t ...

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 from 1989 to 1995, Fortuna Köln for two years and then for SpVgg Greuther Fürth, 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 syst ...

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

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 for SpVgg Greuther Fürth. 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 SpVgg Greuther Fürth 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