{"id":25151,"date":"2026-01-15T14:15:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T14:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/25151\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T14:15:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T14:15:06","slug":"watch-highlights-of-nigerias-penalty-shootout-defeat-to-morocco-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/25151\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch highlights of Nigeria&#8217;s penalty shootout defeat to Morocco"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"article-123\">Hosts Morocco survived a nervy night in Rabat to see off Nigeria 4-2 on penalties to reach the final of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon).<\/p>\n<p>Youssef En-Nesyri stroked the winning spot-kick into the bottom-left corner after Yassine Bounou saved from Samuel Chukwueze and Bruno Onyemaechi.<\/p>\n<p>In a game of few chances a shootout looked a likely outcome from early in proceedings.<\/p>\n<p>Tournament top scorer Brahim Diaz squandered Morocco&#8217;s best opening just before the half hour, misjudging a header from Achraf Hakimi&#8217;s right-wing cross, with the Real Madrid forward&#8217;s effort coming more off his shoulder.<\/p>\n<p>Nigeria&#8217;s star forwards Victor Osimhen and Ademola Lookman were left to feed off scraps all evening, with Lookman&#8217;s first-half drive from just outside the penalty area easily saved.<\/p>\n<p>The result means Walid Regragui&#8217;s side have reached their first Afcon final since 2004, as they bid to lift the trophy for the first time since 1976.<\/p>\n<p>The Atlas Lions will remain in the capital for Sunday&#8217;s final (19:00 GMT) &#8211; where they will face Senegal, who beat Egypt 1-0 in Wednesday&#8217;s first semi-final.<\/p>\n<p>Watch highlights of the penalty shoutouts below:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hosts Morocco survived a nervy night in Rabat to see off Nigeria 4-2 on penalties to reach the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[122],"class_list":{"0":"post-25151","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nigeria","8":"tag-nigeria"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25151","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=25151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}