The National Soccer Coaches Association of America always encourages its members to Learn. Participate. Belong. Recently, Lesle Gallimore, NSCAA Staff Coach and Head Women’s Soccer Coach at Washington University, received the opportunity to spend five days in Morocco to promote female coaches in soccer. Along with two former U.S. National Team players, Galimore attended the conference “Encouraging the Next Generation of Moroccan Women’s Soccer Coaches” in order to provide her insight on the game of soccer and her role as a female coach. Her rich history with the NSCAA and experience at the collegiate coaching level enabled her to encourage Moroccan women to participate and evolve the game of soccer in Morocco. Her story below was posted by the NSCAA Women's Committee.

I feel incredibly fortunate to have been asked by Sports United, U.S. Soccer, and the U.S. State Department to travel to Rabat, the capitol of Morocco, for a tremendous 5 day soccer experience.

Along with former U.S. Women’s National Team players, Angela Hucles and Marian Dalmy, I embarked on this trip to basically run a coaching course or conference called “Encouraging the Next Generation of Moroccan Women’s Soccer Coaches.” 

It was a whirlwind trip and included some pre-trip prep work as this particular Sports Envoy program was to be a little unique and include coaching education not just doing soccer clinics for kids.  The schedule basically consisted of 4 full days of lectures and sessions and 1 half day visit to the U.S. Ambassadors home. Marian and Angela were able to go off-site from the Maamoura Sports Center, the National Training Center of the Moroccan Soccer Federation, and visit the Rabat American School and The Royal Soccer Academy, where they played and ran clinics for girls and boys.

The best part of anything in life for me is always the people. This trip was filled with interesting, awesome, and caring people from beginning to end. Our U.S. State Department host, Sam Werberg and Program Coordinator, Fatima-Zahra Aboukir whom both work in Cultural Affairs, were two of the most kind and diligent people I have met. They both worked extremely hard to make this program fly and I am so grateful to them for their support and assistance.

In attendance at the conference were 30 Moroccan women players/coaches ranging from early twenties to maybe early fifties in age.  Two women coaches from Libya and two from Tunisia were also brought in for the program and it was great to have their perspectives included during the week. The Libyan women were accompanied by another female coach who chaperoned them and took part in some of the conference.

All of the women played throughout the week and a big part of my role as leader of the conference was to get them thinking, learning and acting like “coaches” as opposed to players. The level of play was impressively high, the understanding and knowledge of the game was likewise very good. The two components of soccer that are below “international” standard and I shared this with them as the week progressed, are the physical and psychological elements, which based on cultural norms and mores in this region of the world , is not surprising. I believe the physical and psychological dimensions of soccer are two of the components for which our U.S. Women’s National Team set the standard internationally, so the women in this conference were very interested in specific information in these areas and I tried to provide as much insight as I could.

This was our schedule for the week:

The U.S. Ambassador and his wife, as well as the consultant to the President of the Moroccan Soccer Federation, Karim Alem, the Technical Director of the Moroccan Soccer Federation, Monsieur Marlow, and a huge amount of press and other dignitaries attended this last game. The closing ceremonies were also attended by Aziz, one of Morocco’s most famous former National Team players.

The many “thank yous” were very heartfelt and it was tremendously gratifying for me to feel as though we had a positive impact on these women throughout the week.

The two women responsible for translating my very speedy English into Arabic were warriors all week and, I believe, even learned a little soccer! The President of the Girls of Al Amal Asslaoui Association, Ms. Bahia El Yahmidi, was the one responsible for getting this tremendous group of Moroccan women together and partnering with the U.S. State Department to provide this opportunity. Bahia is a tremendous champion for girls and women’s sports in Morocco and I have a tremendous amount of admiration for her.

I was so impressed by the respect afforded me by these women and by their eagerness to learn and grow in the name of soccer. I do believe that Morocco has a bright future in women’s soccer if their federation uses this conference as a major stepping stone into providing coaching education and playing opportunities for the women involved in the sport. They most certainly have the passion, the interest, and some very good and willing participants.

Lesle Gallimore, Head Coach,  University of Washington Women's Soccer

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