AFCON 2025: Walid Regragui, the heir of a Moroccan dream
Original public source text. It may contain French even on an English source page. This is not a reviewed English translation. Recovered images and media appear below when available.
Image unavailable.
All original articlesHost of AFCON 2025, Morocco approaches its competition with a single objective: win. At the helm, Walid Regragui, the first coach to have led an African team in the semi-finals of the World Cup, fully embodies this ambition and will have to convert the hopes of a country into a concrete result.
Born in France into a Moroccan immigrant family, Walid Regragui grew up in a culture where the ball was not just a game, but an identity bridge. The former right-back knows the history of his selection down to his deepest wounds.
In 2004, in the final of the AFCON against Tunisia, host country, he is a regular on the right back. Morocco loses (1–2). A striking disillusion for a player with the mentality of a competitor. Regragui keeps the scar, but above all a conviction: defeat is never inevitable, provided you make it an engine. It is this mindset that he has cultivated in his experiences on the bench in the local championship, notably at Wydad Casablanca, where he made history with an exceptional season, but also abroad, at Al-Duhail in Qatar. Regragui is one of those who learns quickly, who trains, adapts, simplifies, densifies. He does not build teams, he builds convictions.
The man of global achievement
His notoriety sways into another dimension in 2022. Only a few months after taking up his duties, he led Morocco to the semi-finals of the World Cup in Qatar, a first in the history of African and Arab football.
Fourth at the end of an unprecedented epic, Regragui becomes the symbol of a selection that no longer excuses itself for being ambitious. The Moroccan coach is today the only coach to have guided an African team so far on the world stage. An indelible mark engraved in a tournament where the Atlas Lions shook hierarchies.
Image unavailable.
A style made of rigor, speed, and psychological ascendancy
Regragui’s football finds its strength in a compact defensive organization, where discipline is non-negotiable. He advocates for a solid block, demands permanent concentration, and prefers pragmatism to aesthetics. This rigor does not cancel ambition. She prepares her. The Maroc version Regragui attacks quickly, explodes in the spaces, strikes at the exact moment when the opponent discovers himself. The transitions are meticulously crafted, shaped by speed and rhythm, essential drivers of his game project.
This choice, far from being conservative, is strategic. Pressing high, harassment of the wearer, immediate projection. Regragui never gives up dictating the tempo. This is how he compensates for limits, magnifies strengths and keeps his players mentally above.
AFCON 2023: The shock and the lesson
In Côte d'Ivoire, during the 2023 AFCON, Morocco arrives as a conqueror and favorite. But the competition reminds us of its peculiarity and unpredictability. The Atlas Lions are eliminated in the eighth final by South Africa, putting a brutal end to their ambitions. For Regragui, the observation is that disillusionment must become learning. He says it bluntly: his team knows better who they are, what they must clean, what they must take on. The 2025 edition is no longer just a goal, it’s a catch-up, a duty, an answer almost an obligation for the host.
At home, Morocco no longer has a choice
A few weeks before the competition, the coach no longer hides the color. In his words, confidence and ambition shine through. We will have to win the AFCON. We have progressed, rejuvenated the team, we are arriving with a good state of mind. At home, we will be complicated to play" the coach of the Atlas Lions insists.
The will is clear. Aim for the title, enter into history and transform a national momentum into continental coronation. Morocco, who will play in Group A alongside the Comoros, Mali and Zambia, will open "their" AFCON on December 21, in a Moroccan stadium committed to their cause. A palpable pressure, but that Regragui now welcomes with serenity.
Rewrite history and close the loop
Regragui carries a symbolic charge. In 1976, Morocco celebrated its unique continental crown. In 2004, he lived with disappointment as closely as possible. In 2022, he registered a world page. Today, at the head of the team that he has carried, shaped and modernized, he has a rare opportunity to reconcile the past and the future, to convert hope into title, to offer his country the achievement expected for nearly fifty years.
For Walid Regragui, AFCON 2025 is not just a competition. It’s an opportunity. Change its history, change that of its people, and bring Morocco into the fold of nations that transform their dreams into legacies in football.