Yassine Bounou, football suits him like a glove – Liberation

Impeccable since the start of the World Cup, fantastic against Spain, “Bono” is one of the great architects of the Moroccan epic in Qatar. His team faces Portugal on Saturday in the quarter-finals.

Walid Regragui, the coach of Morocco, has been in front of an audience of journalists for five minutes already, in the basement of the Education City Stadium. In the middle of a response, the door leading to the amphitheater serving as the press room opens. Yassine Bounou arrives on tiptoe and does everything possible to make herself small despite her 95 meter. Missed. All the Moroccan journalists stand up as one man and applaud him for long seconds, no longer paying attention to the words of the coach.

“Bono” by his nickname, a nickname he also wears on the back of his jersey, smiles benevolently. He even seems downright embarrassed when a Moroccan reporter takes the floor, not to ask him a question, but to tell him how much he loves him: “Forty million Moroccans are happy today thanks to you. Thanks for everything you’ve done. Talking to you brings tears to my eyes. You wrote the story. Thanks !”

“I would take out Bono”

A few minutes earlier, at the end of a marathon round of 16 which ended in penalties, the giant disgusted the Spanish shooters. Despite the nearly 1,000 penalties the La Roja players had to take before showing up in Qatar – a requirement of now ex-coach Luis Enrique – none of them managed to deceive Bono. Pablo Sarabia’s shot ends up on the post, those of Carlos Soler and Sergio Busquets in the goalkeeper’s gloves, and Morocco takes off for the first time in its history for the quarter-finals of a World Cup. Serene, the one who brought hundreds of thousands of Moroccans to the streets even wears a big smile at the time of his second parade. Lucid and not ready to question his coaching, Luis Enrique let go after the match: “I would choose the same shooters if I had to do it again. The only thing I would change, if I could change one, is that I would take Bono out.”

Hero of a night, exploding in the eyes of the general public, Yassine Bounou, 31, is not yet his first attempt. Slender and quick to throw himself on the ground, he has been part of the cream of goalkeepers playing in Europe for two years. Best goalkeeper in the Spanish championship, eighth in the Yachine trophy – which rewards the best goalkeeper in the world – Bono shone last season with Sevilla. He had already entered a few months before, and twice, in the history of the club. First in February 2021, by beating the unbeaten streak for a Sevillian goalkeeper in La Liga (557 consecutive minutes). Then in March, becoming the club’s first goalkeeper to score a goal, with a left-footed strike after a scramble in added time in a game against Valladolid.

The Canadians made eyes at him

For a long time, Bono nevertheless remained in the shadows in Spain. Replacing Atlético Madrid in his early twenties, he made his mark with the reserve, then in the second division in the cages of Zaragoza and Girona. It was with the Catalan club, promoted at the end of 2017, that he joined the Spanish elite. Then in Seville, where he was sent, that he gained notoriety. He is first a substitute. The injury of the titular goalkeeper after the first confinement finally allows him to fully take the light. Brilliant in the summer of 2020 in the Europa League, he made parade after parade in the semi-final against Manchester United attackers, before being crowned with his team against Inter Milan. He will no longer leave the Sevillian cages. Walid Regragui considers him today as “one of the best goalkeepers in the world” : “When you know you have Bono in the goal, inevitably, it gives confidence.”

In three games played since the start of the World Cup – he missed the one against Belgium because of dizziness felt before kick-off – he only conceded one goal: that of his teammate Nayef Aguerd, deviating a center in his own net against Canada. Born in Quebec – he joined Casablanca with his Moroccan parents at the age of 3 – Youssef Bounou could have ended up on the other side of the field. For several years, while he waxed the bench of the Atlas Lions, the Canadians made him eyes. But Bono hung on with Morocco and now has 49 caps on the clock.

More than the history of his country of heart, it is that of an entire continent that he will be able to write this Saturday at 4 p.m. against Portugal. Cameroon in 1990, Senegal in 2002, Ghana in 2010: never an African team has, until now, managed to pass the quarter-finals of a World Cup. Bounou and his family, who have already come much further than they were promised, dream of being the first.