Favourites Morocco and Senegal meet in final of Afcon that has been devoid of shocks

Sometimes a tournament’s greatest strength can be its greatest weakness. In part because of the excellent playing conditions, this has been an Africa Cup of Nations devoid of shocks. The better teams keep winning. There has been a lot of good football, but not a huge amount of memorable football.

And the consequence is that, in the final, we have the two best teams, or certainly the best team in North Africa against the best team in sub-Saharan Africa: the hosts and World Cup semi-finalists Morocco against Senegal, who have reached three of the past four Afcon finals.

In that sense this tournament has been an organiser’s dream, a content-production machine: 44 games to get to quarter-finals featuring the eight teams who were highest-ranked for the purposes of the draw. Two of the quarter-finals were games of genuine quality and if the two semi-finals – one goal between them – fell into the sterile stereotype of the Cup of Nations, they were at least tense and meaningful.

The problem was the last 16, in which half the games were essentially box-ticking exercises, and more especially a group stage in which the 16 qualifiers were known with six games still remaining. Having two-thirds of the third-placed sides going through destroys jeopardy, particularly when combined with separating teams level on points not by goal difference but by head-to-head. The World Cup will suffer from the same flaws.

For only the second time this century, neither of the managers of the finalists is foreign. Although Senegal’s Pape Thiaw was playing in France for Saint-Étienne by the age of 17 and enjoyed a career that took him to Switzerland, Russia and Spain, he was born in Dakar and cut his teeth in management with Niarry Tally, the team of Senegal’s largest biscuit manufacturer. Walid Regragui was born in a suburb of Paris and spent most of his playing career in France, but he was capped 44 times by Morocco and coached in Rabat, Casablanca and Qatar before getting the national job.

For a long time, an obvious area for development for African football was management and at last there has been a turn away from European journeymen towards local coaches, almost invariably using the experience they have gained playing for European clubs. All of the last four were coached by Africans, the first time that has happened since 1965.

The most recent instance of a final with a pair of African coaches was 2019, when Djamel Belmadi’s Algeria beat Aliou Cissé’s Senegal: the managers then had grown up in neighbouring districts of Paris. That trend of African football being developed in Europe has continued. Roughly a third of all players at this edition were born outside Africa. Only 14 members of Morocco’s 28-man squad were born in Morocco, and only 15 of Senegal’s squad in Senegal.

This is a process that has been aided by two relatively recent changes in the regulations. In 2009 Algeria led a motion that lifted the prohibition on players changing footballing nationality after the age of 21 and, in 2020, Morocco pushed for a change that permitted players who had played three times or fewer for a country to switch allegiance.

The Cup of Nations is increasingly a tournament of the many African diasporas. That is not to question any player’s affiliation to their country, nor to doubt the complexities of national identity in a globalised world, but it does highlight the effectiveness of the quasi-industrialised youth development systems of western Europe: 14 players across the finalists’ two squads were born in France, five in Spain, and three in each of the Netherlands and Belgium.

Africa is now benefiting from what a piece on PlaytheGame described as “a bug in the trajectory of the workforce flow in the world”. That said, Morocco has also invested in youth development with the Mohammed VI football academy opening in 2009. Four of its graduates, including Youssef En-Nesyri and Nayef Aguerd, were in the squad that reached the 2022 World Cup semi-finals, and the continuing success of the academy system was seen as Morocco won the Under-20 World Cup last year.

The test Senegal will face in the final will not be dissimilar to that of the previous two rounds. Morocco are nowhere near as cautious as the other north African giants but they will probably sit deep and allow Senegal the ball. As Sadio Mané stressed after the semi-final win over Egypt, Senegal have been very effective in probing without overcommitting. They will, though, be without their captain, Kalidou Koulibaly, and the midfielder Habib Diarra for the final after they picked up their second yellow cards of the knockout stages.

Like Senegal, Morocco are looking for their second Cup of Nations triumph but, 50 years after their previous success, there is real urgency about their quest. Morocco – two events into a three-tournament run of hosting, after the 2024 Women’s African Cup of Nations and as a co-host of the 2030 World Cup – has emerged as the modern heart of the African game, with undeniably impressive infrastructure. But that brings with it expectation and there is little doubt that pressure has underlain some laboured displays, especially in the group stage.

Although Achraf Hakimi is their obvious star and the goalkeeper Yassine Bounou has proved again his proficiency in a penalty shoot-out, the two players who have really stood out have been the wide forwards Brahim Díaz, who is the tournament’s leading scorer with five, and, on the left, Ez Abde, without whom Morocco’s counterattacks would be nowhere near as penetrative. The battle between them and Senegal’s two full-backs, Krépin Diatta and El Hadji Malick Diouf, is likely to be decisive.

The sense so far has been of a Cup of Nations that has been almost too slick, too polished. The reputation of a tournament is based not only on quality but on intrigue and drama, and, despite a few moans about refereeing, there has not yet been much of that. Predictability may speak of a tournament’s maturity, of smooth pitches and first-class facilities, but it will not live long in the mind of the neutral. That may yet be redeemed by a thrilling final but, with the World Cup and its inflated narratives looming, there is a risk that this becomes a forgotten Cup of Nations. – Guardian

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