Afcon special: Morocco’s moment, Nigeria’s surge and more: Football Weekly

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:30Actually not that great for him. Nigeria have won all their games so far. Victor Osman in the goals. He scored and set one up in their quarterfinal with Algeria, which includes the fight over the yoghurt. More of that and on. The other semi sees Senegal play Egypt. Mo Salah with the crucial goal in a 3-2 win over Cote d 'Ivoire. Senegal squeezing past Mali in the other. Also, we'll discuss how this tournament's going down across the continent and discuss CAF's unilateral decision to change AFCON to once every four years. We'll do all that plus your questions. And that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

1:01on the panel today barry glendennig welcome hi max and two of our men out in morocco jonathan wilson hello sir morning how you doing i'm all right and we loved having him on last time asasu aboyuana welcome asasu how are you i'm very well thank you guys nice to see you after a year or more yeah once a year it's our annual visit asasu um uh let's start uh should we do the football first and then we'll do the sort of uh the off the pitch stuff in in part three uh host of favorites morocco uh into the semi-finals they called a final they beat cameroon 2-0 pretty dominant in this is also i thought um uh they'd never beaten them in afcon before but they are looking pretty strong now even though they didn't necessarily start the tournament brilliantly well you know as the late steven keshi who won the afcon as a player in 1994 and as head coach in 2013 told me, a tournament is game by game.

2:00So you don't think about the trophy when you're playing the opening game. You don't even think about the trophy when you have a semifinal to play. Every game is a final in itself. And as you play the tournament, you hope that the team gels more in terms of its technical cohesion, in terms of being able to stick to a tactical plan, in terms of being able to adjust to the opponent. Because, you know, a team may have to play a different formation two or three times in a game, depending on what the opponent does in the game. So I think it is just critical that teams have the ability to adjust and to do what is required to win.

2:47And I think that the greatest thing about this AFCON, and I've been covering AFCON since 19, As a player, as a journalist, I've been covering AFCON since 1998. But as somebody who has been watching the AFCON, I've been watching the AFCON since 1980. So I've been watching this tournament for a really long time. And I have to say that the pitches in Morocco have been the best ever. And it is having a huge influence on the quality of football. we are seeing. The pitch is the cathedral of the game and the players need a pitch in pristine condition in order for the ball to obey their instructions. So when the pitch is in good condition and you have quality footballers on it, you are going to see very good football.

3:38Yeah, and look, they have quality footballers, don't they, Wilson? You said in your piece that this is the sort of game where they'd arrived, Morocco. Yeah, I think you really saw the pressure they were under. I mean, they haven't won the Copa Nations for 50 years. which I think they'd only won four knockout games ever in the Cup of Nations before this one, which given their status in the World Cup, given what they've done at the World Cup, is a really bizarre situation they're in. I think that pressure's been ramped up by the sheer amount of investment. I mean, the stadiums here, I mean, Sassim makes a point about the pitches, he's absolutely right, but it's not just the pitches.

4:09The stadiums are all excellent. Obviously, that's looking ahead to the 2030 World Cup as well. There's been other infrastructure investment around this tournament and the World Cup. and that's all added to the pressure there was protests before the tournament began about that and that last 16 game where they beat Tanzania 1-0 and were pretty flat Waleedra Gragwi was was booed uh which if you think he's the coach who took them to the semi-final of the World Cup yeah he's now been in charge of 47 games of which they've lost four and those four are the World Cup semi-final against France the World Cup third place playoff against Croatia was a dead rubber in qualifying in South Africa.

4:48So they basically lost one game in which they weren't massive underdogs and that mattered. And yet he's still getting booed. And I think that's because of a sense that he has become the face of this investment. And people are so, well, hang on, we're spending all this money. Should that not have gone on healthcare or on flood defences, which has suddenly become a massive issue after the deaths in Safie? Well, just before Christmas, 37 people died in flooding in Safie. Should the money not have gone there? It's all gone on football and on infrastructure and the football's really boring. But I think that quarterfinal, finally you saw them come out of their shell.

5:22They were playing without the same pressure. And I think on a much more basic level, Ashraf Hakimi, who's their most important player, came into the tournament unfit. He's carrying an injury. And I think he's got fitter and fitter as the tournament's gone on. And he's started to impose himself. And I think that's probably a major factor as well in why they're playing better and better. And Brahim Diaz, five goals at Sarso. So did you expect him to have such a good tournament? Oh, for a player of his quality, I would say yes. I think he's gelled with the team well. But funnily enough, even though he's the one who is doing all of the scoring, the player that really impresses me most in the Moroccan team is Ayub Elkabi.

6:06And one of the reasons why is because when you know what he has come from to play for Morocco, it's it's a testimony to his resilience to his courage to not give up when it seemed that things wouldn't work out for him I mean he was in his early 20s he was still a carpenter when he got the opportunity to to play to play football so a professional level so I mean he has really shown huge character and I really respect that. I mean, for the Moroccan side, I mean, I would say this. The last time they got to the final of an Afcon was in 2004 in Tunis. And I was with them actually. Playing? Was this when you were playing?

6:57Yes, during my heydays as a top footballer. I was still playing for Real Madrid then. so on that final day because I was really annoyed because my my editor at the BBC where I was still working at the time he didn't allow me to go for the final so what I did instead was to just go to the hotel of the Moroccan side and I stayed there and waited for them to come back from Radice Stadium after they lost the final so yeah it was good because I was able to see them when they came back and I had a conversation with Zaki Badu, who was the manager at the time. And I actually compare what Walid is going through now to what Zaki Badu was going through over 20 years ago.

7:44Zaki Badu is a former African footballer of the year, 1986. He's one of the legends of African football. He was an incredibly good goalkeeper. And I also think he was an incredibly good tactician as well when he was managing the team then and the pressure he was under after that tournament to get them to Germany it was huge and nobody seemed to care that he had gotten the Atlas Lions to their first final since 1976 in 2004 when he went through the 2006 qualifying series and only failed to qualify on, you know, on the fact that they just didn't have enough goals in their group stages. That was all.

8:29They really had, it was a tough, tough qualifying series and they got him out. And I felt that was profoundly unfair, you know, considering what he had done. And as Jonathan has just pointed out, Waleed is facing exactly the same thing. If Waleed doesn't win the African Cup of Nations, Tariq Sektui, the guy who took Morocco to the under-20 title in Chile, the guy who went with the team to the Arab Cup and won there, they're going to give the job to him. They're not going to care that he took them to the semi-final of a World Cup, which in any other football environment should bulletproof you for several years.

9:08But this is Morocco. It's Morocco. It's their way of doing things. And one more thing before I stop talking for the moment. You know, Nigeria beat Morocco in the final of the Women's AFCON in July. Last July. And I was here. And I know how bitter they felt losing because Morocco were 2-0 up, you know, after halftime. And they thought everything had been done and dusted. But they forgot that Nigeria had won this title nine times. They forgot that Nigeria had won that title on South African soil in South Africa, had won this title on Cameroonian soil in Yangtze. Cameroon is perhaps the toughest place for a Nigerian team to go and win an AFCON, men or women's AFCON.

9:53And they just felt that because, you know, they were 2-0 up, the game was over. But as we know, it's never over till the fat lady sings. And by the time we won, it was a very, very sober and quiet atmosphere atmosphere at the Olympic Stadium in Rabat. And they know, I think the Moroccans deep down know that they're in for a hard time in the semifinal because Nigeria has nothing to lose. Absolutely nothing. And that's all we have time for in this narrative football week with AFCON special. Just to the game itself, Cameroon 0, Morocco 2. I thought Brian Mwemo was very unfortunate to not get a penalty when it was still 1-0.

10:40A blatant trip by Adam Messina. Am I alone in thinking that was a fairly scandalous decision? No. Okay.

10:53I've seen what Sasu said on Twitter. Once the referee hasn't given it, you can convince yourself that Mbwemo's looking for it and his movement is to defend his leg. But if it had been given, nobody would have complained. For me, it's not a 100 % penalty, but it could have been. Nigeria, as you say, is going to be a fascinating semi-final, Sasu. Would you say they're the best team in the tournament so far, the Nigerians? You're having me back on already. I thought you were going to give everybody else a bit. the interesting thing about the nigerian team and i want to talk about the manager eric shell when he was given this job in january last year i was resolutely against it i felt that for a team of nigeria's size and in terms of the players it has and his afcon pedigree that a manager who had only started international management in 2023 with Mali, his home country, did not have the pedigree to manage the Super Eagles.

11:55That was my opinion. But I have to be fair to say that having seen what he has done at this tournament, having seen his tactical imprint on the team and the way he's managing the players, he's changed my mind. The team is improving. And what actually impresses me about him is that the team is not at full strength in this tournament. We are missing two critical players in defence, Benjamin Frederick, who is injured, and Ola Aino, who was injured and only just recovered before the AFCON. And I knew there was no way Nottingham Forest was going to let him go. And there was no way the player was going to leave because Nottingham Forest had to bring him back to health after he got injured last September.

12:38So he wasn't going to upset his club and go to the AFCON. If we had had those two players in the team, I would have told you that Nigeria had balance, balance that we've never had in many, many years. The problem for the Nigerian team in this tournament is going to be the defending. I mean, Calvin Bassi has been outstanding, but he is alone. He needs to have the support behind to even make him play better. So the challenge for Eric Schell is to see if he can keep defensive mistakes to a minimum. The attack is the best in Africa. Alex Iwobi has been outstanding in midfield. I think this has been his best ever AFCON.

13:23And his play reminds me of his uncle, the magician footballer, JJ Okocha. I haven't seen him make a wrong pass throughout this tournament. So, I mean, if Nigeria, if the players can just deal with the hostility because it's going to be tough. There are going to be a lot of lasers being pointed to them from the stands in the game. There's going to be all kinds of noise. So if they can tune it out and just focus on the game, they can win. But if they want to win this game, they will have to put up a majestic performance. If it is a 49-51 game or 55-45 game, something will happen and Morocco will win.

14:10Don't ask me what I mean by something will happen. I'm not going to answer you. Barry. Wilson, what's changed with Nigeria, who had a, quite frankly, disastrous World Cup qualifying campaign not so long ago? They've looked massively impressive, especially going forward from what I've seen. I mean, I think Asasa will be a better place to answer what went wrong in the World Cup qualifying. The question for me in this tournament is, are they good enough defensively and now the algeria game was not the game i was expecting at all algeria were you've got to give nigeria credit for the way they they sort of physically pressured them in the first half but algeria made so many mistakes in that first half that they didn't really put nigeria under the sort of pressure i thought they would so we saw in the group station nigeria didn't keep a clean sheet the game against tunisia when they're 3-0 up and cruising and suddenly they let in two in the last quarter of an hour and they're really wobbling at the end.

15:05The Mozambique game, Mozambique didn't test them at all. That was a very 4-0, but it could have been whatever score they felt like getting, really. So that balance of that midfield, I think, weirdly, the key player in there is Frank Onyeka, because Ndidi is the defensive presence in front of the back four. He went off against Algiers. I think he's suspended for the semi-final. Yes, he is suspended. Right, sorry, which is a big issue, because he has been crucial in front of the back four. Iwobi's passing has been brilliant. Obviously, Luckman playing that sort of as a number 10, but also drifting left.

15:42His link up with Osserman, for all they had that on-pitch spat against Mozambique, that's been brilliant. But it's whether defensively they are solid enough against a team who really tests them. Now, as I say, they overwhelmed Algeria. Could they do that to Morocco? Maybe, I don't know. But as to why that is so obviously different to the World Cup campaign, I don't know, Assasio's probably better to answer that. Since you'd like me to talk some more, I will.

16:11The truth is, if you have a World Cup qualifying campaign and you have four managers running that campaign, that's a cocktail for disaster. The World Cup qualifying campaign started with Jose Paseo in charge of it. and after the Nations Cup in Ivory Coast, he left and then you had Finidi George take over and in between that period, Austin Aguavon, the technical director of the Nigerian Football Federation, took charge of the qualifying campaign for this tournament. So that's three managers I'm mentioning and then you now add Eric Schell to the mix when he took over in January last year. I mean, that is ridiculous.

17:02And I'm fortunate that as a journalist, I have access to everybody that matters in Nigerian football, the president, the general secretary, the minister of sport. I have off the record conversations with these people. And I tell them that this is really stupid Because if you had had a proper manager from the beginning of the World Cup qualifying campaign Nigeria would have qualified for the World Cup with two games to spare easily Because every single opponent in that group was wholly inferior to Nigeria But it doesn't matter if you have the best players in the world If you have a shit administration that will not organize things the way they are supposed to be organized You don't make sure that things are done in the way they are supposed to be done If you don't, then even the neophytes of football will humiliate you Now that Nigeria have a coach that knows what he is doing He has a plan for the team It's unfortunate that this didn't kick in when it really mattered Because if you talk to Nigerians and say Which one do you prefer?

18:14Winning the AFCON now or going to the World Cup in June, 90 % of us are ready to throw away this AFCON to go to the World Cup. You reap what you sow when you don't plan properly. I hesitate to bring this up because every time I start to sort of try and steel myself to look into it, the Nigerian bonus row, which seems to me to have been rolling on for 70 or 80 years. Probably 100. It's like this infinite onion of incompetence and ineptitude and probably corruption. that every time you peel back a lane, you think you're getting somewhere. No, there's still a huge onion of kind of nonsense here. I hadn't realized that a bonus had to go through like 50 stages of government to be paid.

18:57But clearly, the players went on strike, refused to train two days before that playoff against DR Congo. Again, I hesitate to even ask the question, but have the bonuses been paid? I mean, the government is saying that they're ready to be paid, but have they actually been paid, Asasu? Well, the Minister of State for Finance made a public statement. And this is the first time I've ever seen the Minister of Finance in Nigeria having to make a public statement with regards to a football issue. The fact is this, from what I've been told from people at the top, that the president of the country approved all the AFCON money since November the 14th.

19:39He actually approved it in cabinet. And so they had five weeks to get the money ready before the tournament. So the question is, why on earth was that money not out before the AFCON? There was enough time. And from what I'm made to understand, the president is really mad with the Ministry of Finance. This is not a matter for the sports ministry now or even the federation, because they don't control when the money comes out. And, you know, I'm a huge critic of those guys. But I have to be fair to them that in regards to this case, this is not their doing. So the Ministry of Finance and the central bank, they should just get the act together and pay the money.

20:18Period. Wilson, what's the fight over the yogurt?

20:26Algeria, I think it's fair to say, disgraced themselves with their conduct generally at the end of the game. There was some pretty unpleasant scenes in the stands that there's people chucking barriers about. the players and coaches and officials surrounded the referee there was little fracas in the tunnel but then the the yogurt incident occurred in in the mix zone i mean i'm getting the second hand sassy was closer to the scene um but yeah i didn't know somebody last night who was there who showed me the footage he'd shot so basically there had been no unlimited food for journalists in the stadium which you know it varies from venue to venue uh for some reason the food that people were expecting wasn't there and so they brought out some yogurts before the press conferences to try and sort of um fulfill that need and then i'm not sure whether the dispute was over the allocation of the yogurt or apparently some moroccans were filming the algerians eating the yogurt and this was seen as somehow demeaning and the algerians kicked off at the moroccans for filming them eating yogurt and so did they throw the yogurt i mean i mean i imagine you'd throw the yogurt right i think they'd fought so hard to get yogurt to eat nobody was going to throw it i if you've seen the footage there's there's some pretty nasty fighting going on in the mix zone but apparently the yogurt was the trigger yeah so there's a there's a bloke in a sort of he's wearing like a cagoule in in three colors like a red white and dark gray uh cagoule who suddenly let's be real let's be real is good fighting attire for yogurt isn't it like a cagoule is the smartest thing to wear he comes from behind and launches a really quite violent kick through this sort of crowded you know the front row we're just doing a bit of shoving and he comes and really launches a kick then disappears and comes back for a bit more so it's we're laughing it really shouldn't happen Algeria have a tendency towards this uh when they go out of tournaments I think they were upset by a penalty they weren't given for what they felt was a handball but it was one of those where a cross was driven from next to no range and it hit the hand but it was down by the side so yeah they felt the refereeing went against them and they had in two of the quarterfinals the referee was changed at the last minute this one was he was he was kicked out of the tournament for wearing the wrongly branded gear while training or something i always seemed very odd whereas the morocco eating a muller right a muller corner when he should have been eating denon that's it uh morocco had also protested about the referee because i think he was an egyptian and I couldn't work out what their protest was over, but he got changed at the last minute as well, which, again, led to all kinds of allegations from Cameroon.

23:05And with the Mbwemo penalty not being given, people were sort of seeing significance and saying, I'm not coming. But anyway, yes, the yoghurt triggered a fight in the mix zone, which is just a marvellous statement, however disgraceful the conduct of all involved was. Excellent. Right. That'll do for part one. Part two, we'll do the other two quarterfinals.

23:30Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly. As Egypt beat the Ivory Coast 3-2, a Mo Salah goal, the difference between these two sides. I mean, obviously him leaving Liverpool for AFCON and what was happening with his future was a huge story over here, Osasu. I suspect over there it's more about how he's playing for Egypt. Of course. Mo Salah last played in the AFCON final in Cameroon in 2022. Egypt are the most successful team in the history of the AFCON with seven titles. And for him to put himself in football folklore in Egypt, you just have to win the African Cup of Nations. He knows it.

24:13And he knows that this is probably going to be the last chance he has to do it. The one thing about Egypt, and it's not just about this tournament generally, you know, Jose Mourinho talks about football heritage all the time. And I think football heritage at the AFCON plays a huge role in how teams play, in the mentality that they bring to competitions. And Egypt does not necessarily have the best team at the AFCON, but they have the capacity to squeeze water out of a stone in games. And you still have players like Marmouche, like Salah, like Trezeguet. These players are capable of getting results even when the football is rubbish.

25:08I can tell you, Egypt can play rubbish football and win an AFCON. They have the capacity for that. And that is why one can't really say much about the semifinals coming up because they can go either way. I have no idea who's going to be in that final. No idea. Are they playing rubbish football at the moment, Wils? No. I mean, they didn't have a great group stage, I think it's fair to say. And they were taken to extra time by Benin in the last 16. but that game against Cote d 'Ivoire it was the first time that I think they looked like the side that they were between 2006 and 2010 when they won three in a row and of course Hossam Hassan the coach was I mean he barely played because he was 38 I think or 39 in 2006 he was the squad captain but essentially an honorific role but he does seem to have re-invoked some of that spirit so Egyptian football they had those three wins in a row then they didn't qualify for the next three tournaments, which clearly was related to all the political turmoil as Mubarak fell and, you know, Morsi and NCC.

26:16And so they've been struggling to get back to that level, which seems strange to say when they have been in two finals since, you know, 2017, 2021 tournament played in 2022. But they only actually won one knockout game in those two tournaments put together. They would play, you know, as Asasi says, their capacity to get through games while playing horrendous football is extraordinary. here I mean they only had 29 % possession but they they played very good counter-attacking football you know they they clearly had a plan it worked exceptionally well I think it's interesting that they changed shape yet again so they'd they'd started with a sort of 4-3-3 they went to a back three then they're playing actually not a dissimilar formation to Nigeria playing with sort of 4-3-1-2 and it is interesting that two of the semi-finals are playing with a front two that They've sort of followed the Leeds model that maybe that is coming back.

27:05But it's almost like Hasma San has gone back to basics of, right, our two best players are Mahmoud and Salah. Let's just put them together. And Asher playing behind them, I think, played very well. Their pressing was, I mean, it was sparing, but it was really targeted in that quarterfinal. The first goal comes directly from Kessier being dispossessed. The second goal, Mahmoud wins the ball back and wins the corner. So both the first two goals are direct and indirect result of pressing. The third goal is a counter-attack. So it's still that sort of, they're not dominating games. They're not being the protagonist.

27:41It felt a much more self-confident display than we've seen. If you'd asked me after the last 16, I'd have been very much, yes, this is the same old Egypt being rubbish and getting through. I think that quarterfinal, they actually did play really well. And they have a great record. I mean, again, Assasio talks about heritage. They have an exceptional record against Cote d 'Ivoire in Cups and Nations. they beat them in the final in 2006 but the game that stands out is the semi-final in 2008 in Kumasi when they beat them 4-1 when it was 3-1 in this game you're sort of thinking oh this could easily be 4-1 it could be a repeat of that as it was Koteva got one back but I actually think apart from the set plays they really struggled with Ivorian set plays apart from that I thought Egypt was significantly the better side they'll play Senegal in the semi-final he beat Mali 1-0 what did you make of that win Osasu?

28:28well Mali I actually have a soft spot for Mali. I think they have a lot of talent, but the thing is talent can only take you so far when you have a team with superior organization and with more experience. And I think that was just the key. You know, in certain games, the attention to the minute details, to the things that you ordinarily would ignore, would determine whether you win a game or not. And that sums up the way that game went, in my opinion. I felt a bit sorry for the Mali keeper in this game because he was at fault for the only goal of the game. A goal started and finished by Illiman Injai.

29:14He let a cross squirm under his body and Injai had made a lung-busting run and was able to capitalise on that mistake. Jugu Diara is the keeper's name, But then he went on to make some incredible saves. It was a game Senegal deserved to win. And Mali had Yves Bissouma sent off as well, rather stupidly in the first half. So that pretty much torpedoed any chance they had of getting back in the game. But yeah, to be the keeper who's at fault for the goal and then to more or less single-handedly keep your team in the game was, yeah, you feel for them. Jiggy Jarrah had a great last 16 against Tunisia as well.

30:03He was the hero of that penalty shootout. So, yeah, Barry's absolutely right. But Marley, they've had players sent off in the last three games. Their discipline has been a big problem. And Basima, yeah, two yellows, absolutely no sympathy with him. The second one, just totally needless, bad foul on the halfway line. so they had drawn four out of four to get to that stage and I was a bit disappointed with Senegal I don't think they've got the balance that midfield right yet they've got so many options it seems like that's almost over complicated so playing Idrissa Gueye Papge and Habib Jarrah I don't know it just doesn't quite seem to to give them the creativity they need it's difficult to I mean Marley are so good at playing with 10 the fact he didn't create chances they're not the first team to do that and I guess if you're being sympathetic to Senegal, you might say, well, they're 1-0 up, they're playing 10, they didn't need to do anything else.