RABAT, MOROCCO (AP) \u2014 Morocco coach Walid Regragui expects a spectacle in the semifinals of the Africa Cup of Nations with the continent\u2019s four best teams all capable of winning the title, and says better conditions mean fewer upsets in future.<\/p>\n
Morocco plays Nigeria in the second semifinal on Wednesday after Senegal meets seven-time champion Egypt in a repeat of their 2021 final.<\/p>\n
Regragui\u2019s team reached the semifinals of the 2022 World Cup but disappointed at the last Africa Cup in Ivory Coast. It is under huge pressure to win the tournament as host and end a 50-year wait since Morocco won its only Africa Cup title in 1976.<\/p>\n
Morocco, which will be a co-host for the 2030 World Cup, has embarked on a huge spending spree<\/a> to modernize playing facilities, stadiums and infrastructure in the kingdom, deepening the sense of expectation among the Moroccan public, many of whom have deep reservations<\/a> about the scale of the investment.<\/p>\n But Regragui can only focus on the field, where he expects an exhibition on Wednesday with the continent\u2019s best teams and players competing in ideal conditions.<\/p>\n \u201cGood stadiums, good playing fields, good climate, and I think the players you should have in the semifinals: Salah, Ballon d\u2019Or, Hakimi, Ballon d\u2019Or, Lookman, Ballon d\u2019Or, Osimhen, Ballon d\u2019Or, Man\u00e9, Ballon d\u2019Or,\u201d Regragui said, referring to all the African Footballer of the Year awards they had won. \u201cIt means we have practically the best African players of recent years.\u201d<\/p>\n He added that Nigeria had reached the final 17 times, \u201cEgypt always gets a ticket, they\u2019re always there,\u201d and 2021 winner Senegal has been one of the best, \u201cif not the best,\u201d teams in Africa in recent years.<\/p>\n Regragui said the level of soccer being played is at its highest because of the cool conditions of North Africa in winter.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the last Africa Cup (in Ivory Coast) we played the Democratic Republic of Congo, when they made us play at 1.30 p.m. in 40 degrees Celsius heat (104 F) with 80% humidity. It\u2019s certainly more difficult to win a match,\u201d Regragui said. \u201cToday we\u2019ve given conditions for the best teams to play their best football.\u201d<\/p>\n Regragui predicted that better conditions will lead to bigger clashes between evenly matched teams and that there will be fewer upsets with more spectacle instead.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will be able to sell rights abroad, we will give a better show of our continent, and I will be the happiest of coaches then as a pro-African because that is what we want, our continent, our football to be respected, even if it is not always perfect,\u201d Regragui said. \u201cWe are moving in the right direction, and I hope there will be goals in these two semifinals, that there will be a spectacle to showcase our continent.\u201d<\/p>\n Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RABAT, MOROCCO (AP) \u2014 Morocco coach Walid Regragui expects a spectacle in the semifinals of the Africa Cup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[63,146,6781,13082,323,264],"class_list":{"0":"post-20889","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-africa","8":"tag-africa","9":"tag-africa-cup-of-nations","10":"tag-fifa-world-cup","11":"tag-morocco-africa-cup-afcon-semifinals","12":"tag-soccer","13":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}