PSV v Arsenal: Moroccan star Ismael Saibari can make the difference for Dutch champions

In the early autumn of 2022, Ismael Saibari received a call from Roberto Martinez, then manager of Belgium’s national team.

They found they had plenty in common. Both the young footballer and the worldly manager had been born in Catalonia, Spain, before making Belgium their home for a significant portion of their lives. Both were ambitious.

Martinez had a proposal for Saibari and applied his charisma to try to persuade the then 21 year old, who was making a strong impression at the Dutch club PSV Eindhoven, to agree to it.

Martinez’s argument was that, of the choices Saibari had, as a citizen of three countries, for his senior international career it was Belgium that made most sense. There was a World Cup coming up in Qatar. Martinez had guided Belgium to the semi-finals in the previous World Cup.

Saibari listened and then said a firm but polite ‘No’. His mind was already made up: he belonged with Morocco, his parents’ native country, the place where he had spent holidays with family while growing up in Spain until the age of six, and while living in Belgium after that.

“It was incredible to be contacted by Martinez,” he acknowledged. “But my heart was with Morocco.”

The Atlas Lions were heading to that Qatar World Cup, too, although very few predicted that, when they got there, they would beat Martinez’s team 2-0 and effectively eliminate Belgium in the first stage, nor that Morocco would knock out Saibari’s native Spain in the next round and, for the first time in history, give the tournament an Arab and an African semi-finalist.

Into this brave new dawn Saibari would boldly step, but he had to wait a while. He was not included in Morocco's 2022 World Cup squad – his fitness was in doubt because he was recovering from a hamstring injury – and would only make his full international debut the following September, fresh from winning the under-23 Africa Cup of Nations.

His club career was by then taking off, after a zigzag journey to Eindhoven that had given him the drive to mature as a versatile footballer with a knack of rising to the big occasion. On Tuesday evening, he has one of those.

PSV host Arsenal in the first leg of a Uefa Champions League tie and the reward for the winners will be a quarter-final against whoever emerges from the last-16 phase’s big derby, Real Madrid against Atletico.

Safe to report that it is in large part thanks to Saibari’s big-match calibre that the Dutch club have reached the last eight of club football’s most prestigious competition.

Two weeks ago, they were trailing Juventus 3-2 with just over quarter of an hour remaining of their play-off tie against the Italians. Cue Saibari, pouncing on to a loose ball to volley in, with his right foot, and drag the contest into extra-time, where a Ryan Flamingo goal would complete the comeback.

PSV had made the knockout stage of the enlarged competition with three points clearance above the line between qualifiers and eliminated teams.

His contributions in the league stage were vital. A 1-1 draw at Paris Saint-Germain galvanised a campaign that had started slowly, the Moroccan feeding a cute through ball to Noa Lang to put PSV in front at the Parc des Princes.

In the last fixture of the league phase PSV beat Liverpool, Saibari’s left-footed finish, from a tight angle, bringing them back from behind to inflict a rare defeat on the Premier League leaders.

Across Europe and Dutch domestic football, Saibari is enjoying his best ever season in front of goal, already into double figures.

In November, he also scored his first two goals for Morocco, in his eight and ninth caps. Add his 12 assists for PSV so far in 2024/25, and the numbers tell part of the story of why bigger clubs from wealthier leagues are monitoring him with a view to possible summer transfer bids.

Beyond the basic performance metrics – they include: most combined goals and assists per 90 minutes of any player in the Dutch Eredivisie, where he’s the leading provider of assists and the player who averages most shots on target per game – there’s his mastery of several areas of the pitch.

In his young career, Saibari has already played everywhere from holding midfield to central striker. Though his stronger foot is his left, his best role is probably as an attacking midfielder and he can come in off either flank.

He has the stamina to answer to the description ‘box-to-box’ and an unusually effective mix of physical power and nimble movement. “I'm hard to push off the ball and not bad technically,” he told Dutch media.

Some of those assets he attributes to his early years, playing in the restricted urban spaces of Antwerp, looking up to his elder brother Akram, who went on to combine a career in Belgium’s lower divisions with work as a television actor.

Ismael, five years younger, was always more focused on his sport, according to Akram. And he had to overcome setbacks. As an apprentice, he was misjudged by Anderlecht, the big Brussels club, deemed to be too heavily built to move up the ladder at their academy. “They thought I was too fat!” he later recalled.

He persisted, and via the youth teams of Mechelen and Gent in Belgium, he reached PSV, becoming a first-team regular under manager Ruud van Nistelrooy, now of Leicester City.

Such was his impact early in that 2022/23 season that Martinez got in touch. A year later, under Peter Bosz, the current PSV coach, he was making his Champions League bow, with significant influence.

PSV qualified for the knockouts thanks to a Saibari goal that launched a comeback from 2-0 down against Sevilla and a via draw against Arsenal, with Saibari named man of the match.

They finished the season as Dutch champions and almost immediately extended their Moroccan star’s contract to 2029. The deal will at least guarantee a significant transfer fee if and when offers come in from European super clubs.

PSV expect that. “Ismael has many qualities besides his technical skills,” observed the club’s director of football, Earnie Stewart. “He always wants to learn and he’s immune to pressure.”