Karim el-Idrissi, from Auxerre supervisor to Jordan’s 2026 World Cup analyst | OneFootball

Karim el-Idrissi’s improbable journey has taken him from Auxerre’s academy corridors to Jordan’s backroom team at the 2026 World Cup, where their final game is against Argentina in Dallas at 4am. According to L'Équipe, the 48-year-old is a self-taught video and performance analyst.

Jordan head into that fixture after defeats to Austria, 3-1, and Algeria, 2-1. El-Idrissi joked that the team’s US base felt like a wildlife documentary, with raccoons and coyotes roaming nearby.

Raised in Champs-sur-Yonne and an admirer of José Touré, he played across the Icaunais amateur scene before joining Auxerre’s academy at 27. He trained once with Jacques Santini’s first team in 2005-2006, impressed, then never received a recall.

In 2008 he became a supervisor at the AJA academy, known for fixing tech issues, then Francis De Taddeo asked him to cut match videos for Jean Fernandez. He built simple DVDs of defensive and offensive phases and set pieces for the staff.

A chance meeting in 2012 with Saudi great Sami al-Jaber changed everything. In 2013 he joined Al-Hilal as video analyst and followed Al-Jaber around the Gulf for nearly four years, before quitting Al-Shabab in 2017 over delayed wages.

Believing the elite game had passed, he returned to amateur football until February 2022, when translator Khalid Baker linked him to Jamal Sellami at FUS Rabat. When Sellami took Jordan in summer 2024, el-Idrissi followed.

He helps model the game plan, delivers tailored instructions with 2D and 3D animations, curates player video libraries and works on technical details in training. He stays upbeat despite Jordan’s early exit, likening football’s essence to a lingering scent.

Source: L'Équipe