Ismael Saibari just did something no other player at the 2026 FIFA World Cup has managed. The Moroccan attacking midfielder earned consecutive Man of the Match awards in Morocco’s first two group stage games, putting himself firmly in the conversation as the tournament’s breakout star.
From PSV to the world stage in two matches
Saibari’s World Cup started with a bang against Brazil, where he opened the scoring in a match that ended 1-1. Earning the Man of the Match nod against the five-time champions would be enough for most players’ highlight reels.
He wasn’t done. On June 19, Saibari scored against Scotland roughly 71 seconds into the match, the fastest goal by a Moroccan player in World Cup history. Morocco won 1-0, and Saibari collected his second consecutive MOTM award.
That makes him the only player at this tournament to achieve back-to-back Man of the Match honors. He’s reportedly only the second African player to score in his first two World Cup appearances, joining Mohamed Salah in that exclusive club.
The PSV Eindhoven midfielder was selected for Morocco’s World Cup squad on May 26. Less than a month later, he’s arguably the most talked-about player in the tournament.
The transfer rumor mill meets crypto markets
Saibari’s performances have reportedly attracted interest from Bayern Munich, with transfer speculation pegging his potential price tag at around 55 million euros.
That kind of attention on a single player creates ripple effects in the fan token market. Trading activity in soccer-related fan tokens, particularly within the Chiliz ecosystem, has seen an uptick that coincides with Saibari’s emergence as a World Cup star.
Chiliz is the blockchain platform that powers fan tokens for dozens of major sports organizations. Fan tokens are digital membership cards that sometimes come with voting rights on minor club decisions, plus the speculative trading dynamics of any other crypto asset. They trade on the Socios platform and various exchanges, and their prices tend to be sensitive to real-world sporting events.