When Sofyan Amrabat was a kid, he would leave for school in his native Huizen at eight in the morning and return home from training at the Utrecht academy at eight in the evening. They were, as he later admitted, "heavy days". But Amrabat never deemed such a gruelling schedule unfair. As far as he was concerned, it was a wholly necessary sacrifice.
Indeed, before taking the bus back from Utrecht everyday, he would stare at the Stadion Galgenwaard and remind himself what he was working towards. "I was tired but I knew why I was doing it: I wanted to reach my dream," Amrabat told Fiorentina's official website in 2021, "And I knew, even as a child, that it's really important to work for it."
As a practising Muslim, Amrabat believes that "everything is written", but that nothing happens by chance - or without hard graft. Which helps explain why he can often be found in the gym on days off. During the pandemic-enforced suspension of play all around the world, Amrabat never stopped training at home. In May of 2021, meanwhile, a video surfaced of him working out while on a trip to Riyadh - in 40-degree heat.