Montreal’s Moroccans thrilled for upcoming FIFA World Cup match

Soccer fans will be packing the cafes and bars across the city for Thursday's Canada-Morocco game, especially in a neighbourhood north of downtown known as 'Little Maghreb.'

Canada won’t be moving on to the knockout round in the World Cup, but Montreal’s Moroccan community still has plenty to cheer about.

Soccer fans will be packing the cafes and bars across the city for Thursday’s Canada-Morocco game, especially in a neighbourhood north of downtown known as “Little Maghreb,” where immigrants from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia have been moving to since the 1990s.

Abderrahman El Fouladi, 70, who arrived in Canada 31 years ago and is an avid soccer fan, says he is looking forward to watching the game at home, surrounded by his Canadian-Moroccan family.

“I will be supporting both teams because I feel as Canadian as I do Moroccan,” El Fouladi said during a recent interview. “Four of my children are 100 per cent Canadian, so it’s hard for me to cheer for one team over the other.

“I do hope that it will be a good and entertaining match, and whatever happens, Canada will be represented because Morocco’s goalie, Yassine Bounou, was born in Montreal and is Canadian-Moroccan.”

Montreal has a large Moroccan community, with about 37,360 people of Moroccan descent living in the city, according to Statistics Canada.

“There are over 100,000 Moroccans in Canada, and the biggest concentration is in Montreal,” El Fouladi said. “It’s a community that is also supported by other Maghreb countries like Algeria and Tunisia. It’s people that are always together to celebrate soccer.”

Hassan Boulal, 50, said he will be watching the game in a bar in downtown Montreal with about 100 other Moroccan Canadians. At the beginning of the tournament, he was supporting both Morocco and Canada, he said.