Morocco trade tackles with Tanzania at the Stade de San Pédro in their 2023 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) campaign opener on Wednesday.
Morocco is a top African football team in the FIFA rankings,13, and, having finished fourth at the 2022 FIFA World Cup, they are strong favorites. They have won the AFCON just once, with that triumph coming in 1976.
The Atlas Lions head into the campaign opener in good form, winning four of their last five games. Following their historic performance at the 2022 FIFA World Cup, they have also been billed as strong favorites and need to live up to the expectation.
Head coach Walid Regragui has called up a well-balanced squad for the tournament, with Achraf Hakimi, Sofyan Amrabat, Hakim Ziyech, and Ismael Saibari headlining the lineup.
The Taifa Stars will play for just the third time in the group stage of the competition and will look to leave a good account of themselves after losing all three games in the 2019 edition. They have just one win in their last five games, failing to score three times in that period.
The two teams met in November in the World Cup qualifiers and Morocco edged out a comfortable win while also keeping a clean sheet.
They met eventual finalists Egypt in the 2019 AFCON quarter-finals, suffering a 2-1 loss. Sofiane Boufal had opened the scoring in the seventh minute to give his team the lead but Egypt recorded a comeback win thanks to Mohamed Salah’s second-half equalizer and Trézéguet’s winner in extra time.
Tanzania is playing in the AFCON for just the third time and is back in the tournament after 2019, having failed to qualify in the previous edition. They met Egypt in a friendly earlier this month, suffering a 2-0 loss.
Morocco are unbeaten in their last five games across all competitions, recording four wins, including a 3-1 triumph over Sierra Leone in a friendly last week. Youssef En-Nesyri bagged a brace and Boufal was also on the scoresheet in the first half.
Head-to-Head
The two teams have locked horns five times across all competitions thus far. As expected, the 1976 champions have the upper hand in these meetings with four wins while Tanzania has picked up just one win in this fixture. Three of the five meetings between them have produced over 2.5 goals. They last met in the CAF 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifying match in November, with Morocco recording a comfortable 2-0 away win. Tanzania are winless in their six group-stage games at the AFCON, suffering five defeats. They lost all three games in their group-stage appearance in 2019, scoring just twice and conceding eight goals.