{"id":603122,"date":"2026-04-13T01:21:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T01:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/603122\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T01:21:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T01:21:07","slug":"following-renards-departure-the-saudi-arabian-football-federation-has-dropped-the-moroccan-magician-ahead-of-the-2026-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/603122\/","title":{"rendered":"Following Renard\u2019s departure, the Saudi Arabian Football Federation has dropped the \u201cMoroccan Magician\u201d ahead of the 2026 World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Saudi Arabian Football Federation is buzzing with activity as it prepares to reshuffle the national team\u2019s coaching staff, with the expected departure of Herve Renard from his post.<\/p>\n<p>The move is part of early preparations for the 2026 World Cup, as the Federation seeks to implement a new technical plan to ensure the \u201cGreen Falcons\u201d perform at their best in the global tournament.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Saudi programme \u201cNadina\u201d, Moroccan Nasser Larguet is also expected to step down as technical director in the coming days.<\/p>\n<p>Read also&#8230; The road to the title&#8230; Al-Nassr face the spectre of the first round in a suicide mission<\/p>\n<p>Read also&#8230; Renard\u2019s time is up&#8230; The World Cup calls on the \u201cRochon\u201d duo to lead Saudi Arabia<\/p>\n<p>According to the source, the federation will not renew Larguet\u2019s contract and instead appoint Englishman Matt Crocker, credited with helping to rebuild English football.<\/p>\n<p>Sources also suggest that national team coach Herv\u00e9 Renard is unlikely to stay, with his chances of remaining at less than 10%.<\/p>\n<p>Larguet, often called a \u201cMoroccan wizard\u201d for his talent-spotting acumen, has extensive experience developing young players and formerly led the Mohammed VI Academy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Saudi Arabian Football Federation is buzzing with activity as it prepares to reshuffle the national team\u2019s coaching&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,284118,24604,14640,5248,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-603122","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-h-renard","12":"tag-morocco","13":"tag-saudi-arabia","14":"tag-saudi-pro-league","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}