Morocco will start it’s AFCON 2023 adventure on January 17th against Tanzania, which is part of Group F along with Zambia, and DR Congo. After officially being labelled as the most successful African team in the history of the World Cup since they finished as fourth in Qatar, the expectations only got bigger for this tournament. Considering the strength of the team, the Atlas Lions were already among favourites for AFCON 2023 but the great result in FIFA’s biggest competition just upped the bar, despite the players’ and coaches’ wishes. There is no turning back now for Morocco and the coach Walid Regragui knows that.AFCON2023: Nine minutes of drama in the sky, several Gambia players fainted due to lack of oxygen!“This is not the first time Morocco will arrive as favourite and a potential winner but, unfortunately, we have not managed to be regularly among the last four. It’s true the last World Cup finals has given us the experience of the big competitions but for us the reality is that the Cup of Nations is always a complicated tournament” he said.North and West African teams are favourites for AFCON title, predicts Stars coach Engin FiratUnlike Regragui, team’s captain Romain Saiss has a different opinion. He believes that this edition of AFCON will be ‘one of the hardest in history’, as he put it in his statement to the BBC. Al-Shabab’s defender likes to put the pressure on hosts Ivory Coast instead.”I understand why people say that, but none of us were born the last time Morocco won the tournament and our coach was playing when we last made it to the final. Ivory Coast is under more pressure as it has the home-field advantage. There are a lot of dangerous teams with great experience too, like Senegal, Cameroon, Algeria and Egypt. It’s going to be a tough competition” the Atlas Lion said, emphasizing that all players need to be ready mentally to go as far as possible.##NAJAVA_MECA_7788984##
