Morocco Travel Information

Mehdi Taouil’s gamble in joining Kilmarnock has paid off and Celtic must beware his talents on Wednesday.

It was in October of last year that Mehdi Taouil somehow arrived at Kilmarnock. He had found a way out of Montpellier, but needed a way back into football. For a player who had also been at Nancy and Nürnberg, and had five caps for Morocco, it probably shouldn’t have come to this.

“It was a bit strange to be a trialist again,” he remembers now. Jim Jefferies, the Kilmarnock manager, wanted to play him in a reserve game before reaching a final verdict, but Premier League rules stated he couldn’t do that without signing him. So he did. A short-term deal until December. Nothing much might have come of it.

Only everything has. A year on and Kilmarnock are challenging for third in the Premier League while Taouil is onto his third contract with them and talking in optimistic terms about an international recall. This Wednesday, he represents their best hope of defeating Celtic in the Cooperative Insurance Cup quarter-finals. Taouil remains a player who, by rights, shouldn’t be at Kilmarnock. Barely a week passes without an incredulous teammate expressing delight that he has stayed this long. “He’s as good as anyone in the SPL,” says Allan Johnston. Jefferies refers to him simply as his “wee find”.

Taouil remembers his first day at the club’s training base and the contrasts which hit him. “Montpellier is right on the Mediterranean, the sun shines almost every day,” he smiles. “Here it’s not quite like that. I had heard Scottish football was very physical and that Scottish players never give up, but still couldn’t believe my first training session. I was a bit surprised at how everybody was giving 100% the whole time. It was like a game.”

It shouldn’t be one that suits his style. The skilful Taouil admits he has had to adapt his game, but has refused to change it entirely. “You don’t have time on the ball when you play here, there’s always a man on you, but I try to still play the way I play. I don’t want to change it. I play to my own strengths. It was a bit of a gamble to come to Kilmarnock, but I believed that I could make something good happen here. I don’t regret it.”

Only what came before it. When Taouil left Nancy, his first club, for Nürnberg, the move went fine in his first season there, but not his second. “It was a big club and I wasn’t ready for it. I made some mistakes off the field there,” he says. “I had some arguments with the coaches, but I won’t make that kind of mistake twice. I’m more mature and responsible now. The problem was when I didn’t feel good in Germany, I had nobody to talk to. I was young and lonely. When the football wasn’t going right, I’d just stay at home and think too much. Here it’s not the same.”

Far from it. Taouil may be away from his Paris-based family, but has a support network in Edinburgh in two fellow Premier League players, Thierry Gathuessi of Hibernian and Christian Nade at Hearts. “We see each other nearly every day,” says Taouil. “I knew them both before in France and it’s good to have them to talk to. It’s good to have settled here, it’s a great lifestyle. My only problem is I have to travel on the M8 every day with Gary Locke [his Kilmarnock teammate] who drives my head crazy because he never stops talking. But it’s fine, we have a laugh together.” The homesickness in Germany prompted a return to France with Montpellier, on a two-year contract. The first 12 months went well.

Perhaps, as it transpired, a bit too well. Halfway through the deal, the club wanted Taouil to agree a three-year extension. Only he wasn’t sure he wanted to. They began to pressure him into signing, which is when Taouil decided he definitely didn’t want to. “They punished me for not signing,” he claims. “During that second season they kept coming to me saying, ‘You have to sign’, but I didn’t want to and I didn’t play much after that. I was really unhappy and knew I had to go somewhere else and play. The fans didn’t understand the situation, but football’s like that sometimes. Now I want to forget this time.”

It is perhaps surprising then that Taouil did commit to a three-year contract with Kilmarnock last summer, but, according to him, it explains his reasoning. He doesn’t want a repeat situation of entering the final year of a deal wanting to leave. Which hints at a Kilmarnock departure a whole lot sooner than 2011. During the close season, there was interest from clubs in France, Germany, Turkey and elsewhere in Scotland, reportedly Hearts. Jefferies describes being able to keep the midfielder as being “as good a bit of business as I’ve ever done”. Kilmarnock are realistic that the time may come that Taouil outgrows them for a bigger club, but appreciate they are now guaranteed a decent fee for their trouble. More to the point, all the while Taouil does stay, Kilmarnock themselves become a bigger club.

“I signed this contract, but in football you never know, it doesn’t mean I will stay here for three years,” he says, carefully. “I have ambition and I want to play at a higher level. You need ambition otherwise you don’t progress. I have big ambitions and I hope they work out for me. The top divisions in England are a really good level, so why not one day? Celtic and Rangers are really big teams, too, not just in Scotland, but in Europe. It would be good to play somewhere like that one day, but at the moment I’m not thinking about that. I just want to perform here and then we’ll see what the future will be. I like it too much here to leave too soon.

“The people here at Kilmarnock are the main reason I stayed in the summer. Everybody is behind me and believes in me and that made it easy. I told my agent I wanted to stay here because I wanted to keep working with this kind of people. With better results this season for the team, I’m happy I made this choice. We’re third in the table and want to stay in this position. It’s not finished. It’s not job done. We want to keep it going and finish there. You can see the passion in Jim Jefferies and Billy Brown [the assistant manager]. I had a good feeling about them straight away. I like how they trust in me and want to return that loyalty.”

Taouil’s last international involvement with Morocco was in 2006, but he has heard encouraging noises that Roger Lemerre, the coach, is considering him when the World Cup qualifiers resume with a home game against Gabon next March. “I’m told the manager is aware of what I’m doing here so I hope I’m near to being involved again because I’m always really proud to represent Morocco. It’s been a frustrating two years not being part of it. I’ve looked at games and thought, ‘I can be part of this side’, but while the national team is in my head again, my first thought is still Kilmarnock.”

Time was when Kilmarnock seemed more like a last resort for him, but it has been quite a year in this Taouil story.

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