Chelsea boss Frank Lampard was grateful to the Moroccan FA for their management of Hakim Ziyech this week.
Lampard has revealed a 30-minute cameo in a friendly against Senegal last Friday was carefully planned between club, country and player - Ziyech's first piece of action since breaking down in preseason.
"I was pleased with it," said Lampard about the 27-year-old's involvement. "We had an open conversation going into it where Hakim spoke to me and I know he had close conversations with their manager.
"If he was going to stay behind, I was looking at getting him minutes in a game behind closed doors but that is difficult for us because of the bubble we have at the moment. The ideal result was that he played 30 minutes for his country, which was exactly what he needed at that time, and he came back and did some more training with us so it worked out well."