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Between December 21 and January 18th, 2026, Morocco will host the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon).

To prevent scheduling conflicts with European clubs and competitions, the 2025 edition was originally intended to be a mid-year tournament.

Before Morocco co-hosts the 2030 World Cup with Spain and Portugal, the event was intended to boost tourism and highlight what Morocco has to offer.

However, it was moved to December to accommodate Fifa’s resumption of the summer’s Club World Cup.

The Champions League and Europa League, which kick off on January 20 and 22, respectively, will not be in conflict with the move to begin in December rather than January.

Afcon will be held in Rabat, Casablanca, Marrakech, Agadir, Tangier, and Fez for the first time this year.

On December 25, there won’t be any games.

On December 15, Afcon participants were freed from their clubs.

Due to this, teams only have a week to prepare before the tournament begins, which enrages coaches, who have been given so little time to prepare.

Patrice Beaumelle, the coach of Angola, called the situation “nonsense” and said it was impossible to “prepare a serious team in just two or three sessions.”

The 2019 edition, which was hosted by Egypt, was the last Afcon held in the summer.

Because of the variable climate of Africa, AFCON is typically held in the winter months, primarily in January and February.

In some countries, extreme heat and rainy seasons can come with extreme heat conditions that can affect football pitches and playing conditions.

Instead, the wintertime brings cooler temperatures and stable temperatures, making for ideal playing conditions.

Due to the bad weather, the 2023 edition held in the Ivory Coast was scheduled for the summer of 2022, but it was postponed until the following year.

Afcon can avoid conflicts with other international football competitions that traditionally take place in the summer because it is held in the winter.

Traditional biannual gatherings have been the Africa Cup of Nations. A spot at the World Cup was not guaranteed for African teams when it first started in 1957.

More African countries have participated in the World Cup over the years.

However, Afcon’s regularity ensures that tournament and tourism revenue has been consistent.

Additionally, it offers players and teams regular opportunities to compete.

To fit in with other international football competitions, Afcon will take place once every four years rather than every two.

Gianni Infantino, the president of Fifa, presented this concept to the Confederation of African Football (Caf) in 2020.

He also suggested Streamlining Afcon between September and November.

Patrice Motsepe, president of Confederation of African Football, announced that the tournament would take place every four years starting in 2028 on the eve of this year’s Afcon on Saturday, December 20.

Make no mistake: England lost in the Ashes. Very poor

This is the most disappointing of all the Australian trips I’ve been to.

England is not a terrible team. They only have a passing chance to defeat Australia. However, they are now 3-0 up after much of their own making.

That is incredibly frustrating.

Because they didn’t give themselves the best chance, they simply had to come back to their preparations after making their decision not to play any proper warm-up games.

Coach Brendon McCullum now acknowledges that was an error, and he can now see that as a significant improvement. After all the discussion, imagine how hurtful it must have been for him to admit that.

I and many others would have been unsure whether he should still be in the position if he had steadfastly adhered to his guns, as this England hierarchy has done before.

I’m hopeful that McCullum and Ben Stokes will have a place in England’s Test team in the future because of what he has done.

Stokes’ answers to questions from his press conference suggested that he is determined to keep going. In the middle of a series, he was always going to say that, but if he felt like doing so, he made the right choice.

When Stokes plays, England remain a better-led force. He is hurting, upset, and angry as I looked in his eyes today.

It would be a huge ask for someone else to join the ranks alongside Stokes because he is the team’s heartbeat and a major part of the dressing room. And it’s unclear who that person would be, especially given Harry Brook’s lack of maturity as vice-captain.

I was beginning to wonder if Brendon had been speaking to anyone other than me as I spoke to him outfield.

After this tour, he and everyone else in charge of the England and Wales Cricket Board were expected to give an account to them. This sent a message to his employers.

A response that was unreliable might not have washed.

That leaves managing director Rob Key looking the most vulnerable right now, largely due to Richard Gould and Richard Thompson, the latter’s easiest for the bosses to remove.

They, in my opinion, are far too similar as a trio.

When England were at their best, they had opponents like Michael Vaughan’s 2005 captain and coach Duncan Fletcher or the stern Eoin Morgan and Trevor Bayliss, who won the 2019 World Cup.

Key is a lovely person, but he might consider whether he allowed McCullum and Stokes to possess too much.

Although McCullum and Stokes are both excellent on-field players, they needed to be guided in the right direction with their preparation and planning.

Being someone who will keep Stokes and McCullum’s feet to the fire instead of challenging that, Key approved.

After all the excellent work he has done at Surrey, Alec Stewart is a clear choice to challenge ideas and keep an eye on the change.

England has some respectable players, such as Jamie Smith and Zak Crawley, who both scored 85 in the previous two Tests.

Yes, he had a bad Sunday, but he had a really good 60 in the second inning after struggling so much.

That simply returns to the process of preparation.

After the second Test in Brisbane, I joked in vain that England would perform well in Adelaide because of their two warm-ups.

Look what occurred.

We could be in for a very different situation if they had won the second day of the series in Perth by batting from their position of strength.

And if Stokes and McCullum are indeed in a reflective mood, they must also take into account the surroundings in their dressing room.

Never having played a match against a pink ball before, three England players arrived for the day-night Test in Brisbane. If they could specify that they wanted to travel to Canberra to play in the game as a pre-game preparation, the environment would be much healthier.

As much as McCullum enjoys discussing reducing pressure, there must also be discussion and discussion in the dressing room as well.

Bazball, as we already knew, is in the skip. That is no longer.

However, the words and how Crawley batted on Saturday and Brook in the first innings both gave me encouragement.

There might be a future if this is the beginning of a more mature and thought-provoking tempo, supported by field-based change.