Morocco’s run in this World Cup has been exhilarating. Led by Paris-born coach Walid Regragui, who took over only three months ago, the Atlas Lions have exceeded all expectations, defeating three former European colonial powers (Belgium, Spain, and Portugal) and are now up against France. From the mass prayer sessions in Indonesia to the celebrations on the streets of Somalia and Nigeria, this team has won the hearts of millions—Africans, Arabs, Muslims, and migrants who see themselves in this team. Images that will endure: playmaker Hakim Ziyech’s light-footed turns, midfielder Sofian Amrabet—dubbed Minister of Defense—and his barreling runs, and team captain Achraf Hakimi’s post-match embrace of his mother, who worked as a domestic in Madrid, Spain, while raising her children. But for Moroccans, it’s also the Moroccan takeover of the Qatari stadiums that has captivated the world: the pulsating drums, castanets, colorful outfits, and elaborate songs. One chant has tens of thousands jumping up and down, “Bougez! Bougez! li ma bougash, mashi Maghribi.” (Translation: Move, move—if you don’t move, you’re not Moroccan.) The most widely circulated memes in Morocco have been clips of players and the coach talking to the press in darija (Moroccan Arabic vernacular), and all the bewilderment and hilarity that has provoked from Western and Arab observers alike. In importing Moroccan stadium culture to Doha, this World Cup also brought hyper-local debates about Moroccan language and national identity to the world stage.

Arabic football commentary is something else, and at this World Cup, the Doha-based beIN Sports Arabic coverage hasn’t disappointed. The Tunisian commentator Issam Chaouali is massively eloquent, poetic, over-the-top, with sundry literary and historical references. He has been on top form in covering what he dubs the World Cup of African and Asian teams. One moment he is referencing Charlemagne and the Muslim conquerors of Spain, the next quoting Shakespeare—well, sort of: “Ya kun? Na’am, ya kun!” (To be?—yea, to be!) Next he is praising Lionel Messi as “a maniac and a ghoul,” and then he is off to singing the Italian anti-Fascist song “Bella Ciao.” He also screams for players and for the world to pay attention to obvious geopolitical change. When Cameroon scored against Brazil, he shouted “Ya Braziwww, ya Braziww!”—he puts on accents. Then he says, “Mama Africa is rising.” When Germany, Spain and Brazil were eliminated, he remarked, “The moons may disappear, but there is no shortage of stars.” The Moroccan team has drawn high praise of course: its rise, a sign of “Arab ambition” and “Arab pride” and its triumphs, proof that “impossible is not in the Arabic dictionary.” The Arabic commentary around the Atlas Lions is intoxicating. Against the backdrop of a crumbling Middle Eastern state system, civil wars and a ferocious ongoing counter-revolutionary campaign, for ninety minutes or longer, the possibility of a shared identity and language and community soars and spreads, stirring viewers across the Arabic-speaking world.

Until the final whistle …

As soon as the post-match interviews begin, cracks appear in the mirror. At the press conferences, many of the Moroccan players and Regragui don’t understand questions posed by Arabic-speaking journalists and require translators. Arabic subtitles are quickly added on screen in an effort to communicate what the Moroccans are saying when they speak darija. One viral clip shows striker Hakim Ziyech patiently listening to a long question posed in Arabic and then responding, “English please.” Ziyech, like Amrabet, grew up speaking Tarifit, a Berber language from northern Morocco. Defender Abdelhamid Sabiri speaks Tashelhit, a southern Berber language, in addition to German, English and darija. The communication challenges add to one of the more fascinating dimensions of this World Cup: seeing Western wariness of Arabic and Arab culture overlap with Middle Eastern ambivalence about Moroccan Arabic and Moroccan identity.

On social media, lists have been circulated of players who are Amazigh/Berber—with repeated appeals to beIN’s Arabic commentators to stop referring to Morocco as an Arab team. Similar debates have taken place in social media in the West—is Morocco African or Arab? After qualifying for the semifinal, the New York Times tweeted that Morocco was the first “Arab team” to qualify semi-finals—the following day it issued a correction that it was the first “African team.” This World Cup has oddly elevated two local Moroccan debates to the international stage—whether Moroccan vernacular is Arabic (short answer: yes, though it may be socially easier to just say “Arabic-inspired”) and whether Morocco is African or Arab (short answer: it’s both).

Scholars who study the Arabic socio-linguistic hierarchy note that Moroccan vernacular is the “black sheep” of the Arabic language family, consistently rated as inferior to Syrian and Egyptian dialects—even as Moroccans may be viewed as polyglots and more modern. Darija is seen as unsophisticated, incomprehensible, even as “non-Arabic;” one linguist calls it “the Arabic dialect that stumps and mystifies other Arabic speakers.” Some background: Arabic vernaculars are influenced by pre-existing languages, the so-called substrate, so that Levantine dialects are influenced by Aramaic, Egyptian ammiya by Coptic, and Moroccan and Algerian darija by various Berber/Amazigh languages. The Berber languages, considered part of the Afro-Asiatic group, are spoken by roughly 30 million people across North Africa from Morocco to eastern Egypt and from Tunisia to Niger. (Within this community, there is a discussion reminiscent of the debate around the term Latinx within the Hispanic community, whereby elders prefer the term Berber, while younger activists prefer Amazigh [free man], since Berbers [al-barbar] has come to mean barbarian in Arabic.) Much has been made by the Western press about how Qatari officials allow Palestinian flags into stadiums, but ban LGBT flags. Less commented on has been the presence of the Amazigh tri-color blue, green and yellow pan-Berber flag, which has been visible in the stands at every Moroccan (and Belgian) match at this World Cup. The Amazigh flag has been allowed into stadiums, except when officials mistook its colors for an LGBT flag.

Darija, the Moroccan vernacular, is thus characterized by a strong Amazigh substratum, as well as by vowel shortening, a particular phonology and the presence of French and Spanish loanwords. Tamazight words like daba (now) and tamara (hardship), both present in popular music and soccer chants, also make darija hard for Middle Easterners to understand. And then there are Arabic words that have acquired different meanings over the centuries as far-flung dialects evolved separately. In the Levant, taboon refers to the clay oven used for baking bread; in Tunisia, taboona is a delicious fluffy traditional bread. In Morocco, taboun denotes female genitalia. Thus, when, in December 2019, Algeria, Morocco’s arch-adversary, elected a president named Abdelmadjid Tebboune, and protestors took to the streets questioning the election results chanting, “Allahu Akbar, tebboune mzowar” (God is Great, this tebboune is fake!), it inspired interesting memes about Monsieur Tebboune.

Memes and jokes aside, North African darija has long been a sore point for pan-Arabists. How can a society that elevated Arabic and Islam to the palaces of Granada butcher modern standard Arabic today? How to solidify cross-border ties when North Africans speak an incomprehensible “patois”? The Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser would dispatch Arabic teachers to independent Algeria to teach the locals proper Arabic instead of French or the local dialect. For Middle Eastern Arabs, darija and Moroccan family names are the strongest indicators of Moroccan alterity. Tensions around these differences have historically surfaced in football rivalries. At international tournaments—most commonly the African Cup of Nations—Middle Eastern commentators struggle to pronounce Moroccan surnames, observing that while Moroccan players’ first names are Arabic, their last names “are, of course, different.” (Even at this World Cup, it’s been a hoot listening to Middle Eastern commentators try to pronounce Moroccan surnames—Aguerd, Regragui, Ounahi, Tagnaouti). More recently, the tensions have begun to appear in Arabic music talent shows like This Is the Voice and Arab Idol. Moroccan participants come in for a hazing (“a stylized junking”) on account of their language—and are sometimes brusquely told to go learn Arabic. It’s thus a little unreal to see Arab commentators gush with praise when Moroccan coach Walid Regrargui gives a press conference in darija, and even grinning when repeating words from darija—drari (the boys) and bezaf (a lot). “Now all of a sudden y’all consider Moroccans Arab [?],” tweeted Safia, a young designer.

At this World Cup, Arab viewers have been taken aback by darija, Amazigh identity, but also by some of the players’ African nationalism. Much has been made of Moroccan coach Walid Regragui’s pan-Africanism. He first raised eyebrows when he told a news conference that their aim was to play the game at a European level, but with “our African values.” Asked a few days later whether Morocco was representing Africa or the Arab world, he prefaced his answer, “without getting political,” and then proceeded to give a nuanced response:

… to begin with … we defend Morocco and the Moroccans … After that we are also African, and that is a priority … we hope to show that African football [“often denigrated”] has entered a new phase … After, by necessity, because of our religion and origins and for a first World Cup set in the Middle East and the Arab world, there are people who will identify with us. Obviously, we are role models and we hope to make them happy. If they can see us as standard-bearers, we would be happy to make them happy if we go through.

After the match against Portugal, Azzedine Ounahi, the midfielder and one of the tournament’s breakout stars, similarly dedicated the victory first to Africa: “We’ve entered into history for Africa and even for the Arabs … We thank Africa that has always followed and encouraged us, and same with the Arabs.” Whatever the origins of this Africa-talk — whether it is recent Amazigh agitation, older pan-African tendencies from the 1960s when the pan-African Souffles magazine flourished and the likes of Nelson Mandela and Amilcar Cabral found refuge in Morocco, or the discourses of French banlieues where Regragui grew up—these currents were accelerated by the uprisings of 2011, their aftermath, and Morocco’s return to the African Union in 2016.