Morocco is hosting AFCON 2025, December 21 to January 18, across six cities: Casablanca, Rabat, Marrakech, Fès, Tangier, Agadir. Twenty-four teams. The last time the tournament came here was 2013.
The 2022 World Cup changed how people talk about Moroccan football, and probably African football more broadly. Beating Spain on penalties, then Portugal, reaching the semi-final — nobody had done that before, not from this continent. Achraf Hakimi plays that version of his career at home this time, in front of crowds who were already convinced. Whether that crowd becomes an asset or a weight is genuinely hard to call. Morocco have shown they can crumble when a tournament stops going their way.
Senegal arrive as defending champions. They won the 2022 edition in Cameroon, and Sadio Mané was the reason. He is 33 now. No team has retained the AFCON title in the modern era, and there is no particular reason Senegal will be the first. They have the squad depth. They do not have the kind of form that makes a repeat feel inevitable.
Egypt have won this seven times. Salah is still their best player, still one of the best on the continent, but he is in his mid-thirties and Egypt keep showing up at these tournaments without going deep. At some point you stop waiting for it to click and start wondering if it ever will.
Nigeria have Victor Osimhen, which means they are either genuinely dangerous or a source of constant disappointment, depending on how fit and focused he ends up being. Ivory Coast won in 2023 and are not easy to dismiss. Cameroon rarely are.
The field is wide open. None of the favorites look capable of winning this comfortably, and that alone makes it worth watching from the group stage on.