Salah seeks Afcon success with Egypt as Morocco eye home glory

As Morocco’s second-weekend edition of the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) kicks off on Sunday after a heated discussion over player availability and tournament timing, the focus has now turned to the pitch.

On the surface, the two main issues looming for the 2025 finals are whether Mohamed Salah will finally win the trophy with Egypt and whether the host nation can break their 18-game winning streak and claim just a second title.

Since his explosive claim on December 6 that Liverpool had “thrown him under the bus,” the 33-year-old’s future has been the focus of headlines.

After making his return from the bench at Anfield last Saturday, Salah will now concentrate on his fifth final-placed success, especially after two other disappointments.

However, focusing on just two subjects would not do a singular tournament’s unpredictability justice.

Senegal’s excellent form was highlighted by their win over England in June, while Ivory Coast’s remarkable home success came in February of last year when they fired their coach in the group stage.

In other countries, Nigeria and Cameroon both aim to win the 2026 Fifa World Cup, but both appear to be in chaos from the outside as well.

Morocco 2025 is undoubtedly a fascinating watch as sides vie for the title dubbed the “holy grail of African football” by Benin assistant coach Tunde Adelakun, who has already won seven of his eight titles.

Given that they have home advantage and have been the continent’s top-ranked team since their historic run to the 2022 World Cup semi-finals, the Atlas Lions are the favorites.

Their victories, which came after Spain’s previous 15-game winning streak, come with the caveat that Tunisia, which is the only nation in the world at the time of Morocco’s 2-0 victory in June, is the only other nation in the top 50.

It will be a case of managing pressure for coach Walid Regragui and his players, who left in the last 16 of 2023.

Fans at home anticipate seeing the hosts in Rabat on January 18 to celebrate their first Afcon trophy since 1976, but tickets were sold out quickly.

Although Morocco should advance to the knockout stages despite the absence of the newly-crowned African player of the year, Achraf Hakimi, the renowned captain, is training, even if the captain is not available.

Former Manchester United player Amrabat said, “I think we have to try to create an atmosphere like we had in Qatar with everyone behind us.”

The most crucial thing in Africa is that you play with your heart. Fans can exert a lot on us. We must display intensity in our displays of intensity.

I believe we can get a lot farther if we can do that with our quality.

Gen Z members earlier this year voiced their opposition to the funding of the football infrastructure ahead of Morocco’s participation in the 2030 World Cup, while recent flash floods in the coastal Safi region claimed the lives of at least 37 people.

The Confederation of African Football (Caf) had few options regarding its timing when Fifa’s expanded Club World Cup was scheduled for June and July this year despite the fact that another mid-season Afcon has once again raised concerns for European clubs.

The world’s governing body eventually intervened, saying that players were only required to be released seven days before the finals, as opposed to the 14 required before most major tournaments, as more Champions League dates were added to the increasingly congested calendar.

That caused a jumble in the preparations of several nations, with Mali coach Tom Saintfiet calling the choice “catastrophic”.

The Belgian continued, “The world needs to respect African football.”

The preparations for Mali’s Group A opponents, Comoros, whose entire squad is based overseas, were forced to postpone a training camp and a game against Morocco on Sunday (Sunday, 19:00 GMT).

Just one week prior, Coelacanths coach Stefano Cusin said, “We are angry about that, it was not correct to tell us [about the change in release date].

“We could have made a different plan if we had known from the beginning.”

Under Hugo Broos, who led Cameroon to glory in 2017, South Africa has developed a unified unit in terms of potential rivals.

Mohamed Amoura, the top scorer in the African World Cup preliminary rounds, and Algeria look confident that for the first time in three years, they will reach the knockout stages.

Meanwhile, Cameroon, the country’s five-time champion, had to deal with a contentious start as federation president Samuel Eto’o removed coach Marc Brys, goalkeeper Andre Onana, and striker Vincent Aboubakar, both of whom were dropped.

We wanted to make changes,” he said. Although they are good players, new Indomitable Lions coach David Pagou remarked, “We set our sights on others to create a different mindset.”

Sudan did not have any debutants despite playing all of their qualifiers away from home because of the country’s ongoing civil war.

Botswana, Mozambique, and Tanzania are all pursuing their first-ever Afcon victory, with the latter developing toward co-hosting in 2027 along with East African neighbors Kenya and Uganda.