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Days before the start of the Africa Cup of Nations, Morocco national football team coach said that the continental competition is «a complicated tournament».
Walid Regragui, who led the Atlas Lions last year to the semi-finals of the World Cup, told British news agency Reuters Wednesday that last year’s achievement in Qatar «has given [them] the experience of the big competitions». «But for us the reality is that the Cup of Nations is always a complicated tournament», he explained.
«This is not the first time Morocco will arrive as favourite and a potential winner but, unfortunately, we have not managed to be regularly among the last four», he recalled.
«It shows that despite the experience of the competitions, it is not a major factor to assure us of victory», the young manager said.
Morocco will be competing in Côte d’Ivoire for the Africa Cup of Nations, expected to kick off on Saturday. The team has set up the bar very high after becoming the first African and Arab team to reach a FIFA World cup semi-finals.
However, for the continental competition, Morocco has had tough times. The last and only time, the Atlas Lions won an African cup was in 1976, when the tournament was held in Ethiopia. Since then, Morocco, which proved to be a good team couldn’t win the long-desired cup. In 2004, now-coach Regragui was part of the squad that reached the finals of Afcon and lost to Tunisia.
The Morocco national team, which arrived Sunday in Côte d’Ivoire, will have ten days of acclimatization in the coastal city of San-Pedro before their first match on January 17 against Tanzania at the Laurent Pokou Stadium. Their second match is scheduled against DR Congo on January 21, followed by their last group game against Zambia on January 24.
