AFCON 2025 Diary, Day 3: Morocco’s Arab Cup Glory, Eagles’ Camp In Fez And CAF’s Historic Decision

MOROCCO had just won the 2025 FIFA Arab Cup in Doha, Qatar, when I arrived in Fez. In the final match against Jordan on 18 December, the day that I left Lagos for Casablanca, Morocco were 2-1 down with two minutes to go in regulation time when substitute Abderrazak Hamdalla equalized from a goalmouth scramble. He then scored the winning goal in extra time (3-2) to grab the Arab Cup for Morocco for the second time in their history, following their first win in 2012.

Morocco’s first win in the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) dates back even longer. It was far back in 1976 in Ethiopia when they beat Nigeria to the trophy in a four-way round-robin “final” that also involved Guinea and Egypt.

Morocco emerged as the overall Champions, Guinea finished in second place, and Nigeria won our first ever medal at the AFCON, the bronze for third place. Haruna Ikerika of Stationery Stores was one of the super stars of the “Green Eagles” at the tournament.

Back to the present and despite a very strong field of opposition, Morocco are the favourites to add the 2025 AFCON title to their very fresh Arab Cup triumph. Since the long forgotten Maroc ’88 AFCON disappointment when they were beaten 1-0 in the semi-final by Cameroun, Moroccan football has experienced a total renaissance in recent years, which culminated in them emerging as the first African country to reach the FIFA World Cup semi-final at Qatar 2022.

Right now, they’re Africa’s number one in the FIFA World rankings; their poster boy, Achraf Hakimi is the current African player of the year; they qualified for the 2026 FIFA World Cup without dropping a point; and they’ve been confirmed to co-host the 2030 FIFA World Cup with Spain and Portugal. Everything is sweet and dandy for Moroccan football at the moment. The AFCON title will be the cherry on the cake.

The foregoing facts and huge expectations were reeled out to Ganiyu Yusuf and me by taxi driver Muhammed as he took us to the Super Eagles HOTEL SAHRAI. The moment we entered his cab and introduced ourselves as journalists from Nigeria, his first exclamation was “AMOKACHI! How is Amokachi?!” We told him Daniel Amokachi was fine. Then he asked about “that gangling striker, the gangling striker……” When we told him that Rashiid Yekini had died, he couldn’t hide his shock and grief: “Ohhhhhh!”

Muhammad is not as familiar with Nigeria’s current crop of players, but he expects Nigeria to do well, anyway. “I only know Victor Osimhen very well,” he said. “Nigeria always had very good players, very strong players, so I’m sure that even your new team will be strong. I wish you good luck against Tanzania, Tunisia and Uganda, but not against Morocco,” he said with a laughter. ‘We want the Cup, we want to win the Cup this time,” he repeated as we dropped off at the Super Eagles hotel.

HOTEL SAHRAI is located in a quiet neighborhood in Fez. Multi-storey residential buildings lead to the hotel, but there were hardly any people on the streets when we arrived. The particular street that led to the Eagles hotel was cordoned off at one end with uniformed security men in sight. The team bus with the insignia “NIGERIA” boldly written on it was packed bedside the hotel which meant that the players and their officials were in the premises. Two Nigerian flags with one Moroccan flag in the middle hung at the main entrance to the hotel. The whole environment was quiet.

We approached the security men who explained that they had instructions from the Confederation of African Football (CAF) not to allow any unauthorized visitors into the hotel. But when we showed them our accreditation tags, they relaxed while we waited.

I had chatted with the Super Eagles Media Officer, Promise Efoghe earlier in the day and soon, he came out to attend to us. We were probably the first set of Nigerian journalists to visit the hotel on a mission and Promise promised (pun intended) to speak to the coach, Eric Chelle, on my mission. I would get a feedback when we all assembled at the Eagles press conference and practice session scheduled for the following day, Sunday, 21 December at 4.00pm. With that assurance secured, Ganiyu and I left the hotel premises without seeing any of the players.

The AFCON biggest news of the day broke far away in the Moroccan capital, Rabat, where CAF President, Patrice Motsepe announced at a press conference that the AFCON will start being played only once every four years from 2028. For a tournament that has been played every two years since inception in 1957, the four-year cycle will be a major policy shift. CAF’s objective is to introduce an annual African Nations League, similar to the European Nations League, in order to generate more activity and, ultimately, more revenue, for African football.

Considering the conflict that the two-year cycle had been having with European club sides over the release of African players, and with the promise of more money coming in, CAF’s decision to reduce the frequency of the AFCON is not likely to attract much opposition. Personally, I only wish that Nigeria had won more AFCON titles than the miserly three that we currently have. Now, it might be virtually impossible to reach Egypt’s record of seven titles in my lifetime, or even equal Cameroun’s five titles anytime soon.

Meanwhile, AFCON 2025 action begins tomorrow, Sunday, 21 December when Morocco takes on Comoros in the opening match in Rabat. But my focus will be on the Super Eagles training here in Fez because that is the primary reason a certain Mr. Chef Food Seasoning (@Mr.ChefNigeria) decided to pick my bills to the AFCON as Official Partners of the Super Eagles and other Nigeria national football teams. More on Mr. Chef and the Super Eagles in my diary tomorrow….