{"id":1164669,"date":"2026-02-23T23:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T04:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/?p=1164669"},"modified":"2026-02-23T23:30:00","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T04:30:00","slug":"morocco-romain-saiss-announces-international-retirement-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/morocco-romain-saiss-announces-international-retirement-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Morocco: Romain Sa\u00efss announces international retirement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Morocco: Romain Sa\u00efss announces international retirement<\/p>\n<p>Atlas Lions captain closes a glorious chapter<\/p>\n<p>Morocco: Romain Sa\u00efss announces international retirement<\/p>\n<p>A major chapter in Moroccan football history comes to a close. At 35 years old, <strong>Romain Sa\u00efss<\/strong>, captain of the Moroccan national team, has announced his retirement from international football today, Monday, February 23.<\/p>\n<p>Romain Sa\u00efss wore Morocco&#8217;s jersey in 86 matches over more than 13 years, with his debut dating back to 2012. Since 2019, he has captained the Atlas Lions. This evening, he published a long and emotional message on his social media accounts.<!--filtered-->&#8220;<em>Dear Moroccan fans, today I close the most beautiful chapter of my football career. After deep reflection and with overwhelming emotion, I announce my retirement from international football. Wearing Morocco&#8217;s colors and leading the team as captain will forever remain the greatest honor of my career<\/em>,&#8221; wrote the <strong>Al Sadd (Qatar)<\/strong> defender.<\/p>\n<p>As captain, Romain Sa\u00efss led Morocco\u2014and Africa for the first time in history\u2014to the semi-finals of the <strong>World Cup in Qatar<\/strong>. With his retirement announcement, the former player of Clermont, Le Havre, Wolverhampton, and others, emphasized the potential of the current generation.<\/p>\n<p>The future of our national team looks bright. I wish them many titles, God willing. From now on, I will be your number one supporter, loyal and passionate no matter what. I say goodbye to the team, but I will always remain a Lion.<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ActuFootMaroc\/status\/2026047879564218539?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u200b<a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/articles\/morocco-romain-sa-ss-announces-233000572.html\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/articles\/morocco-romain-sa-ss-announces-233000572.html<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Morocco: Romain Sa\u00efss announces international retirement Atlas Lions captain closes a glorious chapter Morocco: Romain Sa\u00efss announces international retirement A major chapter in Moroccan football&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1164643,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1164669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1164669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1164669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1164669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1164643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1164669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1164669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1164669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}