Mehdi Benatia, a Moroccan-French footballer who plays for Italian club Juventus has been voted best Maghreb player in 2017 by France Football, a French weekly magazine containing football news from all over the world, ahead of Algeria's Riyad Mahrez and the Dutch-Moroccan player Hakim Ziyech. «Trained at OM (Olympique de Marseille), the Juventus center back made a name in Italy before playing for Bayern de Guardiola. Despite his mid-October knee injury», he performed well this season, wrote the magazine. France football also recalled that Mehdi Benatia scored a crucial goal in the history of Moroccan football in Abidjan against Cote d'Ivoire (0-2), helping the team to get qualified for the 2018 World Cup to be held in Russia. «Finally, Benatia has managed the greatest challenge of his career by becoming a positive leader for a nation that had not experienced this competition since 1998. The former Clermont player now ready to conquer the world with Morocco.»
