The 35th edition of the AFCON is scheduled to kick off in the North African nation from December 21 to January 18. It will be the first time that the tournament will be played over the Christmas and New Year period.
The tournament will bring together the best from African soil, the likes of Tunisia, who will participate for the 22nd time and extend their record for consecutive participations, reaching the tournament for the 17th time in a row, having not been absent since 1994.
Comoros, Gabon, Sudan and Zimbabwe will make their return to the continental tournament after missing out on 2023, Benin and Uganda make their return after an almost five-year absence from the event.
Another team to watch will be Nigeria under Malian coach Eric Chelle, who have appeared in the finals of the AFCON on twenty occasions.
The Super Eagles have won the AFCON three times: the first time was in 1980, and they won a second title in 1994, held in Tunisia. Nigeria won their third African title in the 2013 edition held in South Africa.
Then there will be hosts Morocco, who last won the AFCON in 1976. However, ever since the win, Morocco’s best performance was runners-up in 2004.
Morocco have assembled good squad
Speaking to Flashscore in an exclusive interview, Eymael was asked to pick his favourite for the AFCON 2025. According to Eymael, the Atlas Lions under coach Walid Regragui, because they are good and will be playing at home.
“My favourite to win the AFCON is difficult,” Eymael told Flashscore. “It is a difficult choice, but I will say Morocco because they are playing at home, because they have a competitive team, and because they have a good coach.”
He added: “We have seen Morocco with U17, U20, and U23 teams doing very well in recent years, and at the same time there is a lot of pressure on them to win this AFCON.
“I watch most of their games during the qualification campaign, and they are a complete team that can compete effectively to win the AFCON.”
Discussing the opener between Morocco and Comoros, the 60-year-old, who has coached several clubs in Africa including AFC Leopards of Kenya, and Young Africans of Tanzania, admitted the North Africans will face a tough test but will eventually come out winners.
“Comoros is a difficult team to beat, and since several years back, they are building a solid team, but there will be pressure from Morocco that will help them to win the game,” said Eymael, whose last stint as coach was with Chippa United of South Africa.
“I think Morocco will win the game, it is the same thing with Bafana Bafana in the World Cup playing against Mexico, they won the game with the crowd wisdom, with the 12th man, so if Morocco players resist playing under pressure, I think they will win it.”
Eymael added: “Comoros will not be a walk in the park, of course they will be there to prove to everybody that the qualification to play in AFCON was not a fluke.”
Morocco must pay attention to DR Congo
Asked to name the team that could stand on Morocco’s way, Eymael responded: “A team that can disturb Morocco could be a team like DR Congo, they (Morocco) have to pay attention to DR Congo, they are very clever, and the coach is very good tactically, but my favourite still remains Morocco.
“DR Congo is a group that has been together now for several years, they have a very good cohesion, DR Congo can be a surprise, they can be a very big surprise in this AFCON.
“For South Africa, they have assembled a squad of players from Orlando Pirates, Kaizer Chiefs and Mamelodi Sundowns, they know each other very well, they have a good relationship, good cohesion, they will do a good AFCON, but I don’t think they will be able to repeat same performance like they did in previous AFCON.”
Eymael concluded: “A lot of people will keep talking about Senegal, will talk about Nigeria, but I don’t think Nigeria will repeat the same performance from the previous AFCON.”
After playing Comoros at Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium on Sunday, Morocco, who have been drawn in Group A, will then come up against Mali, before taking on Zambia.
